


Sleepless

by WackyGoofball



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, I post this because this keeps staring at me, Insomnia, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Slow Romance, So many tags, Trauma, after all they've been through, and I somehow have to get out of the writer's block, and so I either don#t post at all, and the changes are NOT that major so to disrupt the overall plot LOL, did I forget something?, don't write fics about sleepless people in the middle of the night, in the vain hope this will push me, it's gonna lead to you not getting any rest either, my children, oh yeah, or just post the living hell out of me, takes up after Harrenhal, to work through, true story, we don't know yet how that goes, we will have to see, well sort of, with a bit of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-09 02:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11095299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WackyGoofball/pseuds/WackyGoofball
Summary: Through time, Jaime and Brienne spend some many sleepless nights, worrying about one another, longing for the other, and being close to each other.And over time, the two may have to realize that there is a remedy to their restlessness after all.... I suck at summaries. Bye.





	1. Woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isola_Caramella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isola_Caramella/gifts).



> Hello everyone, thanks for looking into yet another Wacky-fied adventure with unsure outcomes. 
> 
> You are braver than I am, yo. 
> 
> As I already said in the tags, this is yet another meager attempt of mine to somehow push through the writer's block keeping me from my unfinished fics with the insistence of book!Jaime's referring to his favorite wench by her name. This one has been staring at me from the Word documents for about five months now, and so I thought I might toss it out, to see what you guys think and if this is worth continuation. 
> 
> Anyway, this is supposed to be close to canon, while taking some liberties to add some angles, to keep in-tune with the overall theme of "sleeplessness," to tie the story back to them and the little subplot I create hereby. Or try to, at least. 
> 
> The way I have it inside my head, the fic will be more or less episodic. Sometimes three chapters will deal with roughly the same time period, other times it may be that it's only just a single chapter. Just like I won't go into detail as to how they may end up in certain spots or how. I keep close to canon for the most part (up until... the murky territories of future and prediction *dun dun dunnnnn*), so I suppose those things will be straightforward anyway, for those who watch the show. For what may come in terms of future outcomes not part of the canon (not yet anyway, LOL), don't be surprised if I don't make huge exposés on the matter. I keep this emotion and relationship-based foremost. 
> 
> ... That was way too much explaining. *shakes head*
> 
> A-n-y-w-a-y. I gift this to Isola, after she was so kind to give me a little BIG something on tumblr, which was ALL the things and more. Plus, not just a Lannister always pays his debts, but so does a Wacky. I hope you'll like it, darling. 
> 
> Anything else...? Oh right, as per usual - no native, no beta, just my wackyfied fics with all of their stupid mistakes. :D
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Jaime leans his head back as the sun, filtered through the canopy of the stretch of woods they had decided to make their camp for the night, rains down on him in droplets of warmth.

They are closer to King’s Landing now, which means a _most_ definite improvement in climate.

Having been born a creature of the West with its vast coasts, mild winters, and hot summer air, Jaime feels his body stretching to the sun like a flower leans to the light after a long winter.

Soon enough, he will be back in King’s Landing. The weather there was pleasant enough when Jaime left, even though nothing comes anywhere close to a summer at Casterly Rock, as far as he recalls from childhood memories long since faded over the years of service for Kings not deserving it.

What Jaime remembers rather clearly, however, are the moments he spent as a lad by the coast, breathing in salty sea air tingling his tongue, warmth clinging to him like a coat he could only shed if he jumped down into the azure waters below. Or lying in the sand until the sun had dried it on him and he just had to shake off the remaining grains before climbing back into his clothes to make it back to the Rock before his father could lecture him for slacking off his reading lessons.

So, while King’s Landing is not the Rock, the weather will likely make up for some of it, if only small fractions compared to the price he paid, now left to rot at Harrenhal.

And of course… Jaime will finally get to come home.

He blinks up into the sky, ignoring the prodding of Qyburn’s skilled, long, bony fingers as he tends to Jaime’s stump. Jaime to focus on the dancing dots of color before closed eyelids instead of the absence of his hand, and the pain that still hums dully beneath the marred flesh every time he moves too fast, too rashly, too much.

_Or at all._

“The healing goes very well, Ser,” the master without chains tells him.

“All thanks to your skill,” Jaime says, making his ignorance no secret. He doesn’t need that man to tell him how well his stump does.

_It’s a bloody **stump**. That is a contradiction to anything going well altogether. _

“Oh, no, I would not mean to take those laurels for myself, Ser. You see, it is about the man’s vitality. The will to fight. Some patients will fade away because they gave up in their minds, and that means that the flesh soon follows.”

“I bet you told your little subjects the same stories to make them hold on even when they just wanted to die,” Jaime huffs.

That man should make no mistake. Jaime knows if something evil glares back at him, _well, most of the time_. But this man with dark hair and dark thoughts has this aura bleeding out of him that Jaime makes sure that he only stays within the man’s periphery for as long as is required.

“I…”

“Save your breath to spare us both the shame, hm?” Jaime tells him, cocking an eyebrow at him, but then allows his gaze to wander round. “Will you tend to Brienne once you are finished or have you already done so?”

“I did not, but I didn’t see her in a longer while, I must admit, Ser. But rest assured, once Lady Brienne comes to me, I will treat her, of course.”

“You better do that,” Jaime huffs humorlessly.

It’s not that he can blame Brienne for trying to sneak away from the dark-haired man with likely a bit too much curiosity. Brienne told Jaime a while back that she doesn’t like Qyburn and his touches, especially after the stories Jaime shared with her about that maester without chains and his _little_ experiments.

That doesn’t mean that she gets to slack off the treatment, however. If Jaime has to sit through having the man with cold eyes poke at his stump, then so Brienne can have him poking at the cuts from the bloody bear.

Because sure as the Seven Hells burn will Jaime not have the wench perish from infection after he jumped down a damn bear pit to save her.

“There, done,” Qyburn announces, helping Jaime to put his arm back into the sling. Jaime stands up at once, turning around on the heel to go look for the tall woman with the stubbornness of a mule, leaving the maester to his own wicked business.

Something is up with her, Jaime is certain of that. And he is set on getting to the bottom of it.

After a quick conversation with Steelshanks and the other men, Jaime gets at least a general direction, and so he is off, wandering around the woods to look for the woman who has been his one constant in this everchanging world as of late. It’s not like Jaime has much other to do these days.

That woman always means trouble, as it appears. Though then again, Jaime can’t say that he is not a cause of trouble in his own right.

However, gladly for him, Brienne is tall in frame and therefore not hard to spot, even amongst the trees and bushes towering above him.

Yet, to see her up a tree _does_ come as a surprise even to Jaime, who thought he’d seen quite a few of her odd habits by now. That is something he can’t remember having seen her do… _ever_. No, in fact, he is fairly certain of that. After all, the woman would always sleep just inches from him, holding the leash close to herself to recognize even the slightest of his movements to snarl at him with eyes closed that he is supposed to keep still.

And Gods know how much he loathed her for it.

“My lady?” Jaime calls out, expecting Brienne to turn her head to him with a scowl, if not a hint of a blush, but instead an _arrow_ flies past him with a whooshing sound.

“Hey!” he hollers. “So that is how you treat the man who saved your life, wench?!”

Brienne’s face remains unreadable for him as she swings her insanely long legs on either side of the thick branch – only to jump down to the ground below, landing surprisingly swiftly for a woman her size.

Now that her armor is gone, as are the ropes the Brave Companions bound her with, Brienne moves very differently… almost elegantly, _at times at least_. Not always. _Most_ of the time, she trots around like a horse refusing the spurs, but there are those small fragments of time when her body seems to move as though it was made of water alone, instances when her awkwardness is overtaken by a certain amount of self-consciousness and confidence that gives bounce to her step, a swing to her thick hips, a fluidity Brienne often seems to lack otherwise.

_Or perhaps knows better to conceal than I tend to give her credit for it._

Jaime watches as Brienne walks up to him, her chapped lips a thin line as she presses them together.

“Sorry,” she mutters. “I couldn’t wait.”

“For what? Shooting me dead?” Jaime snorts, only to frown as she walks past him to where the arrow went. And only at that instance does Jaime see that the arrow solidly sits in the flesh of a small now dead boar, no older than a juvenile.

Brienne bows down by the animal’s side to check if it is dead before removing the arrow to bind its feet with a rough-spun rope.

“How comes you have taken the duty of hunting upon yourself? I thought that this is usually the job of what’s his name? I tend to forget? The one with the muddy hair and dumb smile?” Jaime questions, though that description applies to pretty much all of them in his opinion.

“He normally does, but I am fed up with squirrel for dinner,” she replies bluntly.

“Ha, I couldn’t agree more to that. Though I have good hope that we will reach some tavern by the next day or so, so we can finally eat properly… and sleep in a proper bed of straw rather than forest ground, leaves, moss, and likely feces here and there.”

He has to try hard not to moan gleefully at the idea. Jaime’s body is _aching_ for some small comfort, if only one of a hard bed in a stinky tavern. At this point, all of this sounds heavenly.

But that seems to be the thing: You only learn to appreciate those small comforts once you don’t have them anymore, once they are taken away from you, ripped out of your hands, _now hand_. And Jaime can say that without a doubt – he didn’t have them for an achingly long time.

Instead, he was dragged along, only to sit in a muddy pen, wrapped in chains, then put on a leash as Brienne pulled him along, and after a brief visit at Harrenhal he’d rather erase from his memory altogether, only to now repeat the process on the rest of the way to King’s Landing, finding no rest on dry leaves, moss, and feces whatsoever.

“… Yeah,” Brienne replies with an odd grimace as she walks back to the tree to retrieve her stuff.

“What? You can’t tell me that you are dreading to finally spend a night without the threat of having a Bolton man kill us, well, granted that Steelshanks and the rest don’t start to act stupid all of a sudden, which I dare doubt, and the small comforts of a bed, a good meal, some ale, and a fireplace.”

“I already said that I agreed,” Brienne replies bluntly, not meeting his gaze.

Not that this is particularly uncommon for Brienne. Nevertheless, of that Jaime is certain, something is most definitely not right about this situation.

“Well, once we make back for camp, you should see to it that Qyburn takes a good look at your cuts. The darker it gets, the more he’ll have to prod, and I would advise you to keep the contact as small and short as possible.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Apparently, I seem to have to, because you keep wandering off without having the maester without chains have a look at you. I told you, it’s not acceptable that you earn yourself an infection from being bloody well stubborn,” Jaime points out to her.

“I will see him. But first I wanted to get something to eat,” Brienne says, barely moving her jaws apart. She rounds the tree. Jaime cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of her, impressed in all earnest once he sees that on the other side of the tree, looped over one of the branches, is another rope, with some more squirrels and rabbits.

“My, my, you really want to put that man to shame by showing him how it’s actually done,” Jaime chuckles, amused.

“I don't care for that man’s shame,” Brienne argues. “Or for anyone’s. If he can’t hunt properly, that’s hardly my problem. And I won’t make it mine by eating the little yield he gets us for a meal.”

“It’s always good to know that your concern is not to pet men’s egos,” Jaime says with a lazy smile.

“Neither do I think men do care if the likes of me were to _pet their egos_ ,” Brienne replies with a short huff, if a slightly bitter one. “We should head back now. I think that should do for a day or two.”

“Most definitely,” Jaime chimes. “You can give me one of the ropes.”

Brienne frowns at him.

“Now don’t look at me like it’s most outrageous that I don’t let you carry all of it,” Jaime grumbles. Brienne studies him for a longer moment before she hands him the rope with the rabbits and squirrels attached.

“You think I can’t take the heavier one?” Jaime questions, narrowing his eyes at her.

“You think I let you carry the heavier one when you are the one who is still healing from a major wound?” Brienne retorts.

Jaime has no reply to that, so he just shoulders the rope and the two make their way back to camp mostly in silence. At some point Jaime feels reminded of the days where it was just the two of them, off the usual paths.

Just that he still had both his hands back then, if wrapped in chains.

Just that the leash is missing now – as is her armor.

Just that both now bear scars they didn’t have in the beginning of their journey.

Just that it’s not at all like it was, or so Jaime has to realize. Something is entirely different, and it’s not even about the missing hand, armor, leash, or the greater amount of wounds still healing.

Because back then, he would spend every minute of the walk teasing her, jesting with her, getting Brienne to a point where she’d be distracted enough for him to slip past her defenses, to steal her sword and attack, get away.

_And now?_

Now, they walk next to each other in silence, without a need of his to slip away or, _Gods forbid_ , kill her – he’s well moved past that stage by now. However, also the light moments seem gone as they trot next to each other, the small distractions from the reality of their situation fading away. Because that is what they were to Jaime, so he realizes now that he finds them missing. There simply were those moments when Jaime would not necessarily tease Brienne for the sake of slipping away, but just because he wanted to forget about his state as a prisoner, wanted to forget about the chains chafing against his wrists, about reality beating him to the ground over and over. And then, talking to Brienne was perhaps the one true distraction.

It’s like it is with the beds. It seems to be the case indeed that you only learn to appreciate something once you no longer have it.

And Jaime grows increasingly aware of that very circumstance. He grows to hate how the woman keeps her gaze averted, away from him, and tries her very best not to look him in the eye.

As though _Brienne_ was suddenly the one trying to slip away – from him.

What does she fear will he see in her big blue eyes that gets her almost sheepishly scared?

_Which is odd enough because there seems to be nothing to truly scare that woman. If a bear won’t do, then what will?_

The thoughts drift away from Jaime once they reach camp and Brienne puts down the animals she hunted, the men giving her a quick look-over once they heard the yield hit the ground with a thud.

Some teases are thrown at the man normally responsible for the hunt, _the one with the most forgettable face_ , but Brienne says nothing, just turns and walks away without speaking another word to the men as they already make plans for dinner that night. She walks over to the maester without chains to ask him if he has the time to see about her wound now, which Qyburn _obviously_ does.

And even if not, Jaime would most certainly make sure of that.

Soon enough, with darkness flitting across the sky with fast if silent strides, the fire boils some rather well smelling stew and Jaime reckons that it can’t harm to accept the ale handed to him from a worn skin, the prospect of some fleshy boar seemingly having heightened the Boltonmen’s spirits considerably.

Obviously, Jaime knows these men are not his friends, and neither does he have intention of making them such, but he also reckons that it’s best to have them stay in good spirit. It can’t harm to have the people meant to see you off safely to King’s Landing in good enough spirit so they don’t get their daggers out for some japes thrown at them. After all, Jaime _is_ aware that he throws those out about as often as his little brother tends to do it.

The ale is not the almost bad, if a little strong, he realizes after the first few tender sips, so that Jaime’s mind is soon humming as the sky fades from violet to blackness.  

He is not surprised that Brienne is having none of the ale once she returns from Qyburn’s ministrations. The wench just silently sits there, on Jaime’s side of the fireplace, but still a bit further off, as though she was sitting alone even when surrounded by quite a few people. Her vibrant eyes glower a foreign shade of jade in the shine of the flames as she runs her long, callused fingers over a blade of bluegrass about the length of her forearm again and again and then another time again.

After a surprisingly savory meal, _well_ , however tasty it can be with as little as they have to toss into the stew beside the meat Brienne provided, more ale is emptied from the skins as Brienne goes on playing around with the blades of bluegrass making up her one concern as the men go on chatting, jesting, and humming.

Jaime counted. _Nine blades by now._

First smooth over them, again and again.

Then twist them, again and again.

Repeat with the others, again and again.

Brienne went ahead to make a loop around a small twig and now seems to braid the twisted bits of bluegrass like young maidens braid each other’s hair before a banquet. Though she doesn’t even seem to bother to look as she goes on braiding, smoothing out the bumps of grass, over and over. Her gaze remain set on the fire, draining the sapphire blue from her eyes to paint them this foreign shade of milky jade.

Jaime shakes his head.

_Just why do I bother? Shall she braid grass if it pleases her._

What does it concern him? The wench does whatever she wants anyway.

 

_Oh oh, glorious Florian_

_He was the first who had opened her thighs_

_Oh oh, glorious Florian,_

_Run from thousands of lies_

_To the happiest day of their lives_

 

Jaime whips his head around to the Boltonmen with flushed cheeks from the ale.

 _Six Maids in a Pool_? **_Really_**?

Well, at least it is not _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ , Jaime reckons. He glances back over to Brienne, a small smirk creeping up his lips at the prospect of seeing her so deliciously growling and scowling, boiling beneath the surface at such improper song sung in the presence of a lady, but… _no such luck_. Brienne doesn’t even seem to see them as she goes on glancing at the flames or the braid in her big hands, which make her work of the evening seem even more incredibly small and filigree.

 

_Oh oh, glorious Florian_

_He was the first who had stolen her bud,_

_Kissing her petals and_

_Whispering swears,_

_Green grass had colored with blood._

 

Jaime shakes his head.

_Seemingly, all those bawdy songs are about sex._

His eyes wander back over to Brienne to see if _that_ coaxed a reaction out of her at last, but again, the wench stubbornly keeps her eyes away from the men getting more and more drunk on the ale, the soft breeze, the taste of good stew, and bawdy songs.

Jaime shifts over the log he sits on, closer to where Brienne took her seat on an ash stump. He leans closer, almost mischievously happy to finally see the reaction he long since expected from Brienne for the sake of the songs as she whips her head around, blinking.

“Is it troubling you if they sing such songs? I can make them stop at once if you want me to?” he suggests, his mouth making the words sound as though they were coated in tar, a soft drawl from the ale binding down in his tongue.

Why exactly does he ask?

Jaime can’t seem to remember now.

_Damn the ale._

A small yet strong “ha” escapes her lips, shooting out like an arrow.

And for _some_ reason, Jaime starts to feel uncomfortable at the sound. It’s no true laugh, he’s never heard Brienne earnestly laugh at this point, though he wonders what that would sound like. Instead, the laugh Brienne let escape her lips just now sounds strained, like a bow’s string overstretched, begging for release.

_Pained, almost._

“What now?” Jaime frowns.

“You _are_ aware that I spent a good amount of time in Renly’s camps, yes? You think the men never sung these songs? Or that they politely would have stopped in _my_ presence, of all people? If that were to bother me, I never should have left Tarth in the first place,” Brienne snorts, the men hollering yet another round of _Six Maids in a Pool_ so loudly that it swallows her voice almost completely.

To Jaime’s liking, it surely would have been best for her if Brienne had never left her home isle. That would have saved her quite some trouble, to say the least.

Though then again… the taste on his tongue turns instantly stale at the thought.

_Bitter, almost. Curious._

He never would have met her. Jaime takes another sip from the skin at once, feeling his throat parched all of a sudden.

“I just… meant to offer,” Jaime replies with a grimace, searching her eyes, which are almost black in the darkness, now that her gaze retreated from the flames.

“And I appreciate it, Ser, but there is no need. If it brings them pleasure, who am I to judge? No harm is done. It's only just a song,” Brienne argues, not meeting his gaze. “And we shouldn’t make our protectors angry with us, right?”

“Right indeed,” Jaime agrees.

They do seem to think alike.

 

_The Dornishman's wife would sing as she bathed,_

_in a voice that was sweet as a peach,_

_But the Dornishman's blade had a song of its own,_

_and a bite sharp and cold as a leech._

 

“Well, just say something if they go too far,” Jaime chuckles, leaning back to take another swig from the skin filled with ale, enjoying the sensation of warmth spreading in the pit of his stomach.

His mind starts to drift back to the songs while his eyes keep watching Brienne’s fingers threading the grass over and over until all of it blurs into a sort of gray mass before his eyes. Jaime only vaguely registers the warm hand on his shoulder as suddenly the music seems to have ceased.

“You should lie down, Ser,” he can hear Brienne say before she _makes_ him stand, or rather _stagger_.

“I can do that myself,” he mutters, though even in his addled mind, the words rather dribble out of his mouth than they are well-spoken, swallowed ends and a completely off intonation.

“You are drunk on ale and almost keeled over,” Brienne replies bluntly, having none of it as she walks Jaime over to his bedroll, unceremoniously letting go of his arm once it’s safe enough for him not to fall.

Jaime grumbles as he twists his body so not to put weight on his stupid stump, burying half of his face in the bedroll’s rough fabric. A small shudder goes through him.

They are still too far from King’s Landing. The nights are still not warm enough.

At least the ale makes him feel _somewhat_ warm – and for the first time in a long time, _somewhat happy_ , though that is likely an overstatement, still. But the songs and the ale took Jaime’s mind off his stump for a little while.

He wriggles around a bit, shaking out his limbs, hoping that the wench will finally get going to lie down next to him, as she usually does. She always provides the last bit of heat it takes to hush the shudders from the cold away, but… Brienne apparently has different plans as she starts to walk away.

_Damn her._

“Where ye goin’?” Jaime drawls, but Brienne doesn’t answer, instead walks away from the camp, the moonlight shining down on her, smoothing out all edges.

_In this light…_

But Jaime doesn’t get to finish the thought as darkness clouds his vision, pooling in his stomach until even the last of the warmth of the ale fades away into a pleasant nothingness of his dreams.


	2. Tavern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne are supposed to get some good night's sleep at an inn. 
> 
> Things don't go as planned, really. 
> 
> My summaries are bad, bad, baddy-bad-bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaaack. Thanks for sticking around, commenting, kudoing, the stuff you awesome reader folks do. 
> 
> I hope that the line break images I had in the chapter are now fixed. Thank you to AlynnaStrong for pointing me to the issue. I have no clue what went wrong. For Wacky knows shite about technology. 
> 
> A-n-y-w-a-y... my writer's block only kicked in some time after this chapter, so we can squeeze it out jus now. Wooop! 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Jaime wakes up to the sound of birds chirping, announcing the new day’s arrival. He pries his eyes open slowly, _very_ slowly, the light hurting his eyes to the point that he has to squint some small tears away.

_I shouldn’t have had that much ale._

Jaime is no longer used to it, which means he gets drunk on far, far less than he would have back in the day when he still had both hands, had not been prisoner, and just lived his usual, odd, between-the-lines life.

Jaime rolls on his back, using his elbows to push his torso up from the thin blanket, scratching his head as he looks around. The other men are still asleep, two of them hugging each other in their sleep.

_How precious._

One should think that Boltonmen are far more threatening in nature, but that bunch seems rather tame.

Jaime wrinkles his nose, smelling dust and burned ashes. That seems to be the thing with monsters and enemies. In their sleep, even the most despicable beings seem rather peaceful. Jaime lets his gaze wander around the camp.

_Brienne is not here._

The corners of his mouth twist into an uneasy grimace. While Jaime is aware that she might just as well empty her bladder or fetch some water, the last he remembers is her walking away, and now Brienne is gone. And something about that is _unnaturally_ unsettling for him, so Jaime has to realize.

He glances at her bedroll, which looks just like it did yesterday evening, as far as he recalls. Either Brienne suddenly came to bother to make a bed that isn’t a bed in the morning, which she didn’t up to this point, or she didn’t sleep next to him at all.

“And up we go,” Jaime mutters to himself as he stands up, if a bit unsteadily.

He normally would have set out after the wench at once, but his bladder has something else to say, so Jaime first takes care of that business before heading out, which takes way too long ever since he has only just one hand to open his breeches and get his member to where he can empty his bladder without soiling most of his clothes.

The woman seems to make a sport of it to keep him searching for her.

_Though the wench shouldn’t get too used to that._

Jaime is by far too old for those kinds of games.

Once Jaime is done, everything safely stuffed back to where it belongs, he trots through the woods with some curses left unsaid on the tip of his tongue, though the fresh air seems to do good to clear his addled mind.

Jaime comes by the small stream they took their water from during their stay here, reckoning that maybe Brienne will be around there – and apparently, he is proven right.

There she sits, by the stream, a bucket on either side.

_Apparently, not six maids in a pool, but one wench by the pool, aye?_

And here he was worrying, the fool.

Jaime chuckles to himself as he makes his way over to her. He leans down, surprised to see Brienne’s eyes closed.

_The woman has dozed off while getting water! Ha!_

Jaime is about to lean in closer to rouse Brienne by calling out to her, but as he bends down, he loses footing on the muddy ground by the stream. Jaime slides down full-length, feeling the mud seeping through his ragged clothes. Jaime growls in frustration. One should think that the loss of a hand wouldn’t do anything to his balance, but it does for some damned reason.

_Apparently, the entire world is out of balance!_

As if on cue, that is when Brienne rouses from her slumber, bolting up as though a snake just bit her, letting out a rather shrill shriek, staggering forward into the shallow stream, falling to her knees in the process. She twists around, drawing the dagger from her belt, whirling around blearily, baring her teeth, her eyes covered by the dripping locks obscuring her vision.

“Brienne?” Jaime calls out with a grimace, tasting foul mud on his tongue.

Her head twists in his direction, beads of water falling from her unruly curls like crystals. It takes Brienne another few seconds before she runs her left hand over her forehead to smooth the dribbling locks from her big blue eyes, which seem unnaturally wide as she keeps staring at Jaime, still clad in rags and mud.

Her muscles remain perfectly rigid, her chest heaving as though she just outran an entire army, but then Brienne sees the dagger in her hand, still pointing roughly in Jaime’s direction. She lets her arm fall at once, nostrils flaring.

“I didn’t mean to give you a scare,” Jaime says with an easy smile as he points his left down his body. “I slipped on the mud as I was about to call out to you. No need to murder me just yet, is there?”

“I… I am sorry,” Brienne mutters, her flat chest heaving. She sheaths the dagger, back to where it belongs in the little, undecorated sheath attached to the worn leather belt wrapped around her thick waist. Her fingers are still shaking as she scrambles back out of the stream. Brienne comes to tower above him, looking even more imposing now that he is on the ground and has to look up her, from head to toe. Brienne outstretches her right hand to him. Jaime gladly takes it to come to stand, no longer as surprised with what ease the woman helps him up.

_She has steel in her body, no way of denying it._

“What would _you_ be sorry for?”

She blames him for almost anything, even if it isn’t his fault.

“I… I didn’t know it was you. I'd never mean to raise a weapon against you,” Brienne says in a rush, the words dribbling out of her mouth like muddy water from the stream behind them.

Jaime normally would have laughed, because not long ago, they both raised the weapons against each other in duel by a bridge, ready to kill one another. But her expression drains the japes out of him at once.

She is sincere about that.

“I know that. And I rather have you on alert. That means no one steals you away even when you sleep by the stream,” he tells her, purposely keeping his tone easy, if only to calm her, which is still surprising Jaime beyond a word’s description, granted that Brienne is the last person you’d expect to need someone calming her, and that he is still rather certain that he is perhaps the must unsuited to offer her ease.

“I didn’t sleep,” she argues stubbornly.

_Of course she does._

“You were,” he retorts – of course.

“No, it’s… I dozed off, is all.”

“ _Dozed off_ , I see. And when exactly did you go out to get the water, then?” Jaime argues, pointing to the buckets with his left hand.

“How is that of your concern?” she asks defiantly.

“I was just wondering, because it seemed to me that you left your bedroll unattended last night.”

“In fact,” Brienne huffs, not looking at him. “You might be aware that we are still in the woods, which are no safe place to be. And those who could have taken a nightshift of watching were apparently out of it from ale and song.”

Jaime sucks the inside of his cheek into his mouth, catching more of the moldy taste of mud on his tongue.

Truth be told, he _really_ forgot about that.

“I reckon we all owe you an apology, then,” Jaime says with a grimace. “That was ungracious.”

“I don’t bother,” Brienne argues, rolling her broad shoulders. “Or else I would have spoken up. The maester also did a shift.”

“Well, if it is you any comfort, it seems that we will only have a half day’s ride today until we reach a town at last. Then you can catch up on the sleep we deprived you of with our inconsiderable behavior.”

“Sure,” she replies curtly.

“Is everything alright with you?” Jaime asks bluntly. Brienne stares at him as though he just started to talk Valyrian, though he wouldn’t ever know a word of that wicked language, spoken by wicked people he helped unthrone, and shoved a sword through his back.

Brienne licks her lips, wincing for a moment, apparently at the taste of stale, muddy stream water, “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You seem… different from the usual, is all.”

“Nothing is wrong,” Brienne says as resolutely as she can. Jaime grimaces, knowing that she has he walls up all the way to the top at this point, and there is no way of breaking through them at this moment.

_Or ever._

So, he rather lets it go, putting on an easy smile instead.

He is truly tired of fighting her – if it turns too serious. Small quarrels can be vitalizing, actually, but to battle with her in all earnest drains Jaime of his energies, so he rather does without.

“Then I suppose we should fill the buckets back up and head back?” Jaime suggests.

“Yes,” she agrees, almost relieved to escape the situation, doing quick work to fill the buckets to the rim. Jaime holds out his left hand, gesturing at her to give him one as well. Brienne is reluctant at first, but once he is about to open his mouth to say something, she lets him take one.

_Stubborn woman, really._

And just like the day before, the two make their way back to camp, where the others rose from deep slumber in the meantime. One of the Boltonmen already means to comment on Jaime’s being caked with mud and Brienne’s tunic and breeches being still drenched by the edges, but whatever japes they have in mind dry on their lips once he comments on how glad he is on the good companionship they share, holding each other close to fend off the cold.

After quickly breaking fast, giving the horses to drink, and packing up their belongings, the horses are saddled and mounted, and off they are towards the next town, away from this place, back to civilization.

Jaime keeps a watchful eye on the wench the whole time, though he tries his best to conceal the fact. He wouldn’t want to draw unwanted attention to her or himself for that matter. After all, Boltonmen and a, to say the least, _questionable_ maester without chains, should not be underestimated. They may turn coats very fast if they feel the need or reason for it.

Brienne took her place at the very end of the group, guiding her mare over the bumpy road as expertly as you would expect a woman who has probably been riding horses ever since she was all but a small, _well, however small she ever was_ , girl on the Sapphire Isle.

Truth be told, Brienne looks like death warmed over – and Jaime should know, having been a walking corpse for quite some time after the loss of his hand.

Dark circles under her eyes, fine vines of red creeping to the blue of her eyes like hungry little snakes, her complexion a bit if not completely ashen.

She isn’t fine, and Jaime does not at all like that circumstance. He talked to Qyburn – her wound is healing alright, so that can’t be the source of the problem. And Brienne looks far too tired after just one night where she didn’t get proper sleep. That woman is sturdy as an ox. It takes more to shake her through and make her look that drained. Even a journey across half the continent, with a Kingslayer on the leash, a fight of life and death by a bridge, being dragged and humiliated by the Brave Companions, and fending off a bloody bear, did not defeat her.

Thus, Jaime has a hard time believing that one bad night’s rest would have such effect on her.

While it takes in fact only a few hours, the ride to this small town seems to take forever, at least from Jaime’s perspective.

They make their way into the only inn of the town, which _gladly_ has some rooms for them, but not one for each. Jaime is quick enough to declare that he will share with Brienne and that the others can see about how they want to split amongst themselves before anyone can object, leaving even Brienne baffled.

Jaime leans over to her to whisper, “What? You’d rather sleep next to the maester?”

Brienne shakes her head absently, staring at the wooden ground.

Jaime sticks his tongue into the left side of his cheek. For that they have slept mere inches apart throughout their way to King’s Landing, the woman is rather shy now.

“Thought so.”

Arrangements are found soon enough and they can move up to their chambers on the first floor. Jaime is not surprised at the lack of luxury, really, but for the size of the room and the price they paid, it is _more_ than he expected. The bed is big enough, it smells of old wood rather than piss, as it did that one time they slept at an inn short after leaving Harrenhal the second time. The sheets look clean, _well, mostly_. And the small window lets in a gentle breeze to shush out the worst smells.

Brienne moves into the room after him, putting the leather bags she carried inside down on the chair by the fireplace.

“I think it’ll do,” Jaime comments.

“It’s… better than I expected,” she comments, looking around.

“Same thought I had.”

Brienne lets a small sigh as she unhooks the cape around her neck. Jaime reckons that it must be quite a relief not to have that pull on the still tender skin of her marred neck, something he can most definitely relate to.

“Well, I suppose I will see about what the tavern has to offer for food and drink,” Jaime declares.

“Not too much ale again, though,” Brienne says with the faintest of smiles.

“I promise,” he assures her with a soft chuckle. “Will you accompany me?”

“I… if it’s alright, I'd rather just get some sleep.”

“Oh, yes, of course. That’s likely for the best,” Jaime agrees, nodding his head. “I shall bring something up to the room, then. Well, however much I can take with one hand.”

“Thank you,” Brienne replies, her voice sounding almost unnaturally sweet, or rather, that is the first time he hears her using that voice accompanied by that soft _sort of_ smile.

“Then… I shall leave you to your well-deserved rest, my lady. Though I do hope you won’t hog all the sheets,” Jaime chuckles, earning himself a grumble from Brienne.

With that he exits, leaving Brienne to hopefully some hours of sleep that will help wipe away the ashen complexion and the dark circles under her eyes driving Jaime insane in turn.

He wouldn’t want the wench to grow sick so short before reaching their destination.

Down in the common room, Jaime finds himself a seat somewhere in the back where he doesn't have to bother talking to already drunk or drunk-again men with fat bellies or answer questions about where and how he lost his hand. He orders some ale, _mixed with water_ , after all, the wench asked him for it, and something to eat, which turns out to be a broth with meat he couldn’t tell the animal of, along with some carrots and potatoes, served with some bread, some of which Jaime saves up to take back to the room.

Once he finished up his meal, Jaime reckons he might just as well busy himself some other way so not to rouse his tall, scowling companion straight away once he comes into the room. Thus, Jaime gets over with having Qyburn poke at him and his stump, before heading to the small separate washing room the inn happens to have, glad to finally get rid of the worst mud and dirt clinging to him like a second skin.

After Jaime is done, the sky is already changing colors again, announcing night’s approach, so he figures that perhaps now is a good time to head back to the chamber now.

If the wench proves to be a light sleeper yet again, she will have slept at least a few hours. And if not, Jaime waited long enough for her to be really deeply asleep. Though he makes a mental note to remind Brienne the next day how considerate that was of him, to be sure that the wench forgets about him and the other slacking off the duties of nightshift the night before.

And so he climbs the narrow staircase, the wood creaking under every of his steps, makes his way down to the end of the small hall where they have their room, and quietly makes his way inside.

While Jaime is not surprised to find Brienne asleep, after all, that was what she planned on doing, something still catches him rather off-guard, now that he sees her sleeping with the light still filtering through the small window.

Curled in on herself, she looks much smaller than should be possible for a tall woman the likes of Brienne of Tarth, and she looks so… _peaceful_. No hint of a scowl she seems to sport by nature while awake, the corners of her mouth relaxed, her forehead without any crease from a frown that normally seems ingrained into the very nature of her being.

It’s odd, really. While he and Cersei shared bed often enough, Jaime never slept next to her until morning rose. He always had to disappear right after _it_ was done. For obvious reasons. With Brienne, Jaime _obviously_ hadn’t bedded her, but in contrast, he’d woken up next to her too many times to the count by now.

More often drenched in sweat, a scream dying on his lips, shaken by memories of losing his hand, of the blade coming down, cutting that bit away from him, leaving nothing but pain in its stead.

And perhaps that is what made Jaime so nervous about her disappearance in the woods. He grew accustomed to that by now, her presence, looking at her homely face in the morning, though she is usually awake before him, in fact all the times that he remembers ever since they left Harrenhal together.

And a very selfish part of his, residing in the unreachable depths of his own being, beneath all layers of dirty cloth, sneers, and easy smiles, comes to dread that this may be over the moment he reaches King’s Landing’s gates. _Or rather, will be over most certainly._ Because they will most definitely not share a room once they come to the Red Keep. That small part within him doesn’t want this to end for reasons Jaime cannot even pinpoint. He just knows he doesn’t want that to pass – for _some_ reason.

_Insanity, most likely._

Jaime lets out the smallest of sighs as he kicks off his boots as silently as he can, along with his overcoat and heavy woolen breeches, leaving him with cotton tunic and thin cotton breeches before climbing into bed, careful not to rouse Brienne, who is surprisingly silent, when you’d normally expect a woman that big to snore like a bull.

But that seems to be the thing with Brienne of Tarth – she is not at all what you expect her to be, even less in her sleep.

As it appears, it isn’t just that there are no men like him, only him, but that there are neither any women like the Maid of Tarth.

Jaime sighs as he buries himself beneath the covers, relishing the sensation for a longer moment; the rough-spun cotton rubbing against his skin, the soft smell of straw in his nostrils, the warmth engulfing him almost instantly. While Jaime knows that this is no comfortable bed, objectively, it feels like a bit of heaven, wherever that place may be.

Jaime almost instantly embraces the sweet bliss of sleep, succumbing to the comforts of the room and the certainty of her presence beside him, for however long it’s going to last.

A few hours later, Jaime wakes up with a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

He’d hoped that the joy that flooded him when he laid down would keep the mischievous, vile images out of his mind. Yet, there Jaime was again, wrapped in chains, hand outstretched on wooden stump in the midst of the night, amidst the darkness, and down the blade went, through his flesh to sink into the soft texture of the wood beneath as his world went blank and the two stumps, one of wood, one of flesh, overflowed with the red of his blood and pain.

Nothing but pain, engulfing him like the darkness did, swallowing him whole.

Then Jaime was on the stands at Harrenhal, the rain heavy on his head, weighing heavy on his mind, soaking his clothes, his skin, chilling him to the bone, only to catch the sight of pink below, mixed with red and dread, threatened by brown as the bear leapt forward, cut her throat, tore her skin, _her_.

And for a brief moment, Jaime was granted, or rather forced to take a glimpse of what could have been. He caught a glimpse of his coming too late. Too late to save her, too late to protect her, too late to make a leap forward, to the pit below. Soiled pink rags consumed by crimson, soaking the sand below. Falling to his knees and never intending on getting up again.

That was when Jaime opened his eyes with a gasp, and he is grateful for it now. He’d rather not even _imagine_ those particular what ifs and what could have been. Jaime runs a shaky hand through his curls, smoothing some of the sweat off his forehead with the heel of his hand in the process.

A shudder goes through him as the images keep dancing before his eyes in the most menacing of roundels.

_But it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. No, no, no. It did not._

Jaime shakes his head, turning to Brienne, relieved that she didn’t wake from his shuffling and heavy breath, always on the verge of shouting her nam. Only now does Jaime notice that around her wrist dangles that braid of bluegrass he saw Brienne thread by the campfire the night before, again and again.

_Curious._

Jaime drew the conclusion for himself that Brienne just wanted to put her hands to work in some way, because that is something he very well knows from himself. If your mind is busy, one of the best ways to calm some of it is to set your hands off to do some task to keep you preoccupied.

_Or now that one hand, for the matter._

No matter what, it’s ever the better if you have two hands to put to use, so Jaime will have to see about what he can do with his one hand to keep himself preoccupied. But that is not of concern for him now.

Jaime shakes his head, sitting up tentatively, slipping into his boots in silence and out the door to catch his breath in the still too cold air forming mist around his bearded mouth. He glances up to the moon shining down almost as brightly as the sun herself.

It’s odd, really, how sun and moon both shine so brightly, yet the effect is entirely different. The moon is almost always calming, while the sun can be bothersome far more often, yet at the same time also granting the heat the moon cannot give.

At this rate, Jaime won’t get any sleep this night, though. After he finds himself calm enough again, pushing the images far, _far_ into the back of his mind, behind his walls, crumbled and broken, lying in ruins, in the vain hope that they will remain there for a while longer to allow him at least that bit of rest.

Jaime makes his way back to the chamber, only to stop in his tracks when he hears some strange noises coming from inside. Jaime doesn’t waste another second, but rushes in, already fearing that somehow the images of his nightmare transformed into something else, yet much more real, and thus posing a threat to Brienne.

_If the Boltonmen dared to do anything stupid, then…_

To his surprise, there is no Boltonman and no stranger in the room who’d mean her any harm. Instead, there is just Brienne, on the bed, thrashing, muffled shouts and screams coming from her mouth.

Jaime scrambles over to her hurriedly.

“Brienne? Brienne,” he calls out, hoping that this will somehow rouse her, but no such luck. So Jaime goes ahead to put his left hand on her shoulder and squeeze it, calling out to her again.

It takes another few shakes and mentions of her name before Brienne’s body stops moving around erratically and her bright blue eyes to open, glistening with the last remains of the tears already streaming down the sides of her face. She doesn’t look at him or much of anything for a long moment. And Jaime only notes just now that she bit down on her hand in the process. Brienne releases her knuckles from her lips as the world seems to return to her as her body sags down on the straw-filled mattress.

Brienne’s eyes fall on his and Jaime is unsure as to what to do next.

And it is only at that moment that it dawns on Jaime that this is perfectly queer to him. It has been a long time since he offered someone genuine comfort. Most of it is faded now, childhood memories of tending to Tyrion, holding the little, crying form close after yet another snide, another cutting comment from people of his own blood no less, others are more prominent, but lie behind a veil of shadows, clouded by assurances that rang hollow in the face of what he and Cersei had done at Winterfell, and what he did in particular.

“Are you alright?” is the only thing Jaime can come up with at that moment. Brienne’s sapphire eyes shift around nervously, trying to find something to fix on, only to come to rest on his again.

“I, I am so sorry. I… Yes. It’s… I just had a nightmare,” she manages to say at last, her voice hoarse and filled with shame. She straightens up, leaning on her muscular forearms to move closer to eye-level with him.

“One hell of a nightmare that must have been.” He grimaces. “I hope that whoever you saw there got bitten for his crimes.”

Jaime gestures at her hand where the bitemarks are still visible. Brienne looks at them rather stunned.

“I hope I… Did I strike you in any way?” she asks, forcing Jaime’s frown to deepen. “What? No, I was out for a walk, only to come to _this_.”

A pause.

“Has this happened more often as of late?” he asks more quietly this time.

_Because that would surely explain some of her odd behavior, not all, but a lot of it._

“I don’t sleep well, that much I can say,” Brienne replies, and Jaime can see the invisible walls already rising higher by the second passing between them.

“I suppose there is a slight difference between not sleeping well and what you went through right now,” Jaime argues, gesturing at her with his left hand.

“A nightmare, no more. I am… grateful for your concern, Ser, but it’s really not worth mentioning,” Brienne tells him, barely getting her jaws apart.

_Which seems way unlike her._

“… Is that why you sneaked away from camp these past few days?” Jaime questions. “So that we wouldn’t hear your screams?”

The pause is all it takes for Jaime to have his answer.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Though Jaime reckons that if he were a more attentive man, he could have seen that, if only he weren't so concerned with nothing but his own business, his own pains. The woman has been suffering, too. Perhaps not from the loss of a hand, but even someone the likes of Brienne of Tarth seemingly doesn't leave a bear pit without the memories coming to haunt, coming to take pieces of her when she is unprotected, unshielded in her sleep, leaving her without armor or even a wooden sword.

_Sleep seems to expose our true selves after all, leaving us open like a wound, for all the good and all the bad to flood in and rush through us._

And the darkness doesn't seem to stop short even before someone as imposing as the Maid of Tarth.

Brienne sucks her lower lip into her mouth, and then huffs defensively, “What is there to say? I have nightmares. That is… not worth mentioning. I don’t mean to cause additional trouble. And I would have, had I stayed around the men in our company. We are still outnumbered. I don’t want to chance anything.”

“Right, the Boltonmen are giving you trouble. Brienne, you and I both know that you can take on that bunch if you _really_ needed to, _with ease_.”

_She almost had me there back by the bridge, if only just almost because she was **most definitely** not beating me. If she can compete against a man of the Kingsguard, a bunch of Boltonmen will hardly give her any sort of trouble. _

“In any case, it’s not worth mentioning,” Brienne argues, keeping her gaze averted.

“Which is why you bother keeping it from me.”

“I did not…”

“You sneaked away. That means you purposely tried to hide it. Brienne, you are not good enough a liar to make me believe for only just a second that you don’t find it an issue. It is issue enough for you to hide it, or _try to_ , should I rather say?”

“I didn’t mean to cause any more trouble,” she mumbles, not looking at him as the words fall from her mouth.

And it is during those moments that Brienne seems like a much younger version than herself, those flashes of an innocent mind that Jaime finds himself envying at times, though he would rather not.

“Any more trouble… so you mean after that _trouble_ in the bear pit, you are supposed to keep further issue from me so that I enjoy a good night’s sleep in your stead?” he huffs, not liking the taste of the words as they pour over the tip of his tongue.

Brienne doesn’t reply anything, just looks down again. Jaime tries hard not to roll his eyes at that particular mannerism of hers.

As if not looking at him would miraculously offer the explanation for which she’d have to use words instead.

Jaime lets out a sigh. “… Just so that you finally get that into your thick skull, I never should have left you in Harrenhal in the first place. If someone’s been causing unnecessarily more trouble… it was the Kingslayer, _as usual_.”

Because that is apparently the issue until the day he dies - Jaime always feels like all world's crimes come together in his broken, marred body. Some of the crimes he committed himself, no doubt, and will have to answer for likely even beyond his death, some acts he did that had people whisper behind his back, and some acts Jaime tends to believe he is getting blamed for just because it's easy to blame the Kingslayer for it. No one is going to ask anyway. Kingslayers are bad people. So why not toss that at him as well to carry around? And in this case, if Brienne wanted to unburden herself... why shouldn't she? It makes no difference anyway.

Yet again, Jaime is met by silence, though it seems less like an act of defiance and increasingly more like a simple lack of words on Brienne’s behalf, of means for what to say.

“Do you dream about the bear chasing you?” Jaime asks, keeping his voice, hushed, small, as though it could fit into a palm, like a bird with broken wings.

“Not… really.”

“Then what? Were you two dancing?” he jokes, to which she only rewards him with a glare, but then with the smallest of curves of her lips, followed by a snort.

“It was about the bear pit, but just not about me being chased by a bear,” Brienne tells him after a long moment, and for some reason, Jaime believes that he caught the nuance she tried her best to keep hidden.

Brienne didn’t dream about herself being chased, but about… him.

And something is strangely irritating about that thought for Jaime.

Not so much that Brienne may have that dream, but just how deeply it seems to have upset her. Even now there is a quiver reaching through her body, barely noticeable, not at all visible, but palpable once you sit close enough.

_She has nightmares for my sake?_

That is what shocks her?

The idea that the Kingslayer gets eaten by some bloody bear?

What became of the woman in the bathtub who asked what she should care if he died drowning in a bathtub?

Or is that _truly_ her, just with some guarding walls gone, washed away, torn down by a bear’s paw?

To think that someone would care about Jaime like that, outside his own family… the mere idea is strange to him, something almost not graspable if it weren't right in front of him, breathing shallowly, averting gazes. It won’t fit into Jaime’s head, no matter how he twists or turns it, tries to compress it, narrow it down. As though those two big sapphires resting in her eyes were too big for him to carry.

“Well, if it is you any comfort, I am most certain we both won’t earn ourselves a visit in a bear pit any time soon,” he goes on to say, trying to sound funny, though it seems to fall flat on Brienne.

“Maybe some other pit, though,” she says, not looking at him still, shifting her weight to swing her long legs out of bed, turning her great back more towards him, seemingly in a futile attempt to disguise herself with her own body.

“Aren’t we enthusiastic as of late?” Jaime snorts. Brienne looks at him across her shoulder for a small moment as she replies in a small voice, “Is there much to be enthusiastic about these days?”

“Not really,” Jaime answers simply. And yet again he can’t help but wonder; he should have said something else, Jaime is sure of that.

He should have said that he is enthusiastic.

Because he _should_ be enthusiastic. He was not long ago, drunk on ale and hopes.

About returning to King’s Landing.

Being with his family.

_With her._

But why didn’t it tumble out of his mouth right now?

When Jaime’s mind was so set on returning that he murdered and would have murdered only to get to this place marking both his damnation and refuge.

He looks at her again as Brienne absently plays with the bracelet of bluegrass wrapped around her wrist, turning it round and round, pressing it into the comparably softer skin of her arm, the pale stretch of her skin shining almost white in the moonlight.

“May I ask what that wristband of bluegrass is good for?”

Brienne looks at him, stunned, then turns back to the wristband, her features somewhat softening as she gazes upon it, feeling the texture beneath her callused fingertips. “It’s not bluegrass, really. It simply looks very much like it. It mostly grows around the Eastern regions. Bluegrass has no oils in it, but this one does. The oils are supposed to have a calming effect. At least that is what they told me when I was still a young child roaming through the meadows of Tarth.”

“Did it help much?” Jaime asks, eyes transfixed on the bracelet dangling around her wrist. Brienne rolls her broad shoulders. “I thought it couldn’t harm trying, though judging by tonight, I reckon it is limited in its effectiveness.”

“Maybe I should get myself one, too. Then maybe I’d catch some sleep as well,” Jaime jokes.

“I didn’t mean to…,” she means to apologize, but Jaime interrupts her, “I wasn’t referring to that. I was awake before that.”

“I suppose it’s just the tension, Ser,” Brienne says in reply to his own lack of sleep, perhaps her own unsubtle way of distracting from herself.

“Tension?” he repeats, his lips curling into a frown.

“About coming home.”

“Tension… that’s not the way people normally refer to coming home,” Jaime huffs.

Though that seems a much closer description to the one Jaime wanted to believe in a few days ago.

_How can that woman know me so little at times, but then capture the whole of me with just a single word, a single phrase?_

“I didn't mean to… it’s just…,” she stutters, but Jaime cuts her off before Brienne has a change of mind and retreats to silence again, “Do go on.”

Brienne licks her chapped lips before going on to say, “I don’t know, I just imagine… it must be difficult for you, or I imagine. To return home after all this time. After what the Mummers did to you. I just thought that this would not all dissolve into nothingness at the prospect of coming home. But perhaps I am just making such assessment from my own experience.”

“You mean to say?”

She rolls her shoulders yet again – _she does that a lot_. “I just tried to think about what it’d be like returning back home now. And… there was and is tension in my heart at the mere thought of it, despite the fact that I miss the isle, and my Father of course.”

Jaime nods his head slowly. There are truly no women quite like her. _No way of denying it_. For all her scowls and mannish trotting, there is a sensibility Brienne inherits that Jaime only rarely, _if ever_ , encountered. If she is perhaps far better at reading people as she gives herself credit for it, Jaime doesn't know. However, there is no doubt in him that Brienne has a sense of his self that Jaime doesn’t have himself.

Jaime is pulled out of his thoughts when he feels the bed shift beneath him. He tears his glance up to see that Brienne stood up, the moonlight painting her almost entirely white and blue.

“But in any case, I think I should be on my way,” Brienne says, her eyes already searching for her boots and other items.

“On your way _to where_? In the midst of the night?” Jaime questions, narrowing his eyes at her. He is, _yet again_ , met with a roll of her broad shoulders, which does start to annoy him beyond a word’s description right at this moment.

“I’ll just go for a walk or so,” she explains. “Something to calm myself. Fresh air is always helpful as far as I am concerned.”

“I reckon you don't plan on returning before morning rose, then,” Jaime huffs.

Even if he may have lost a sense of himself, Jaime gained a sense of the Other, which happens to be Brienne of Tarth, clad in cotton tunic and breeches and nothing but the moon’s light raining down on her.

And yet again, Jaime is met by silence meant as a reply, or so it seems.

“Well, I may tell you right now that this is unacceptable,” Jaime goes on.

“Ser, I know that you do enjoy a good jest, but I don’t believe this is either right time or circumstance. The ride’s still long and strenuous. I do believe you’d do better just leaving me to my own business.”

“Well, as of now, all of your business is my business and vice versa.”

“That is none of your business.”

“What if I make it my business?”

“Ser, please.”

“Don’t be as bloody well stubborn as you always prove to be, wench, if only just once.”

He is rewarded with a lethal glare Jaime only barely dodges by tilting his head to the side.

“I don’t want to have that argument right now.”

“Neither do I. So just yield already.”

“I won't yield,” Brienne retorts, the “ever” left unspoken, but no less evident in her voice, her posture, her very being.

“I thought you would say that.”

“Well, your fault for trying then anyway.”

“Can’t we both just go back to sleep? Like that, I will have to worry that you get yourself lost on one of your nightly knightly adventures.”

“How would I get lost?”

“How would I know? I left Harrenhal without you once, only to find you straight in a bear pit.”

“Hardly on my own accord.”

“True again,” he laughs, if a little strained as the images flood back into him, tainted with red, tainted with unspoken fears and dread. “The point, however, is this: I won’t get any sleep while I have to worry that you get yourself into some sort of trouble. You are far away from home, on your own, travelling with Boltonmen and the Kingslayer. It’s unwise to wander about without company, specifically now that we are not in the woods. Hare and boar may not make the difference between Kingslayer and merchant, heiress to House Tarth and tavern wench, but the peasants and innkeeps will, trust me in this. We are not in King’s Landing yet, and we travel with the wrong banner, still.”

Jaime is not surprised to be met by silence this time again. Though she keeps her gaze on his this time, which is at least some sort of change, her features pale and fierce, but also broken by the edges.

And a part of him breaks along with it each time, Jaime has to realize.

“Wouldn’t you agree?” he adds when there is no reply even after a long moment of silence dancing back and forth between the two, coated in milky white, blueish light.

“I suppose.”

“You suppose,” he snorts, amused, if only slightly. Because it annoys him very much that she just won’t yield, even in those small situations that mean nothing to the world outside. What does it matter if she gave him the right of it only just once, within the confines of this chamber, of this private sphere, where all words spoken will be kept, treasured within?

“So, can we agree on that you don’t go wandering around on your own? Because if you are sincere in that you do not wish to disturb my oh so precious sleep, you will not achieve it by having me worry about where you go and what trouble you may get yourself into.”

Her eyes widen just a bit at the word “worry” rolling from his tongue, though Brienne tries her best to conceal her reaction, if in vain, because Jaime caught it anyway.

It leaves him wondering what is upsetting Brienne more: The fact that the Kingslayer, _of all people_ , even dares to express his concern for her, or that someone worries about her, her wellbeing, in general.

The Maid of Tarth seems to be a lonely, wandering soul after all; always restless, always chasing something, someone, even if it’s just a false King, long since fallen, killed by shadows wearing the face of Stannis Baratheon, even if it’s only just the revenge for him now.

And if you are a wandering soul without rest, going about and about the world, over and over, finding no space to stay at, no place to land, no place to come home to, then your journey is colored by loneliness foremost, leaving you with no one worrying about you, safe for your family at home, perhaps. You flit away before anyone can miss you, can worry about you, if you are well or not, if you need help or not.

Which makes a mirror image of her yet again, Jaime’s reflection in the looking glass, _if not by virtue of her looks most certainly_ , but by virtue of a shared spirit filled with longing, feeling estranged even at places that should feel familiar, should feel like home. 

Jaime never found himself in King’s Landing, never found his own reflection there to hold him in place, make him feel at home. He found himself restless most of the time, the wicked green of wildfire always fresh on his mind, the echoes of Aerys’ mad laughter ringing in his ears likely for the rest of Jaime’s life, _however long it's meant to last_. Only in the comfort of his own family around him, in his sister’s brief embraces, did Jaime ever have a sense of home ever since his life was bound down to King’s Landing, confined him to the Red Keep in exchange for a now soiled white cloak and the name Kingslayer as his constant if mocking companion.

He wouldn’t know anyone beside his family who’d worry about him, let alone miss him. Most people likely wish for Jaime’s death, pray for it to the Red God, the Many-Faced God, the Drowned God, the Old Gods and the New, the Father, the Mother, the Maid, the Smith, the Crone, the Stranger. If not all at once.

Who’d care about the Kingslayer? Who’d worry about his wellbeing, right?

And for Brienne, the situation seems to be achingly, painfully, threateningly parallel. She has no one around her right at this moment. Maybe Lady Catelyn, but she is a thousand leagues away and likely preoccupied with her son doing nonsense despite having crowned himself as King in the North. Brienne’s father is back at Tarth, certainly worried sick ever since the birds flew back and forth, informing him of his daughter’s price. But he is family. He is a natural sense of home that everyone has. The family always worries about you. But who else is there to do it beside him, who is there to make her feel at home in the foreign lands she passes through on her seemingly endless journey of longing? Who is there for her while Brienne is busy being there for so many people, Renly, Lady Catelyn, her father, and even the Kingslayer robbing her last nerves?

And if Brienne asks herself the same questions, then that’d likely explain her eyes widening at the mere idea that there _is_ someone out there after all.

Even if it’s only just the Kingslayer.

_We don't get to choose who we love, and seemingly, we don't get to choose who worries about us either._

“If that is what you wish, Ser,” Brienne says, ripping Jaime out of his thoughts of failing to find a landing place, back to her tall frame bathed in moonlight and irritation.

“Indeed.”

“Then it shall be so,” she says with a queer sort of resolution. Jaime already expects her to finally crawl back under the covers so that they can return to the realm of restless sleep, but not so with the Maid of Tarth, as it appears. Jaime frowns as Brienne takes two long strides to glide across the wooden floor, over to the chair by the fireplace to seat herself upon it.

That woman is about as stubborn in mind as she is tall in frame.

“So… to be clear, you will now just sit in the chair for the rest of the night?”

“I stay within the room, so unless the peasants and innkeeps have a change of mind and turn against us right in this chamber, I should not cause any greater disturbances.”

“That’s _not_ what I meant.”

_Didn't she listen to a word I just said?_

“I don't care for what you meant," Brienne says, barely moving her jaws apart as she speaks. "Your argument was valid enough, but it is my right to choose however I wish to go about it otherwise.”

“One of these days, you will be the death of me, Brienne, there is no doubt. You will manage to kill the Kingslayer by driving him past the point of insanity," Jaime grunts, leaning back slightly on the bed. 

“You should get back to rest.”

“ _You_ should get back to _bed_.”

“Ser.”

“In all sincerity, Brienne, do not force me to force you," he warns her. 

“Please, as if you’d manage,” she huffs.

_And there she is again._

“I am strong enough,” Jaime retorts, if with a small smile once he hears her scowl at those words that already had her grumble the last time, back on the voyage that seems surprisingly light in color, as compared to the journey full of mud, shame, and pain as they got dragged along by the oh so Brave Companions.

“Ser, I do not wish to have that sort of argument with you, even less so in the midst of the night.”

“Precisely," Jaime agrees. "So get back to bed and shut your stubborn mouth. Then perhaps we both would be granted some more hours of sleep.”

Brienne pinches the bridge of her nose, leaning her elbows on her thick thighs. “Could you just stop, _please_.”

Her voice has an edge of desperation now that makes Jaime’s stomach feel at unease even more than it does anyway. 

_Sleep or the lack thereof seems to expose us more than one could ever begin to fathom. It leaves us laying bare._

“I do not mean it only just as a jest,” Jaime tells her. “If that is what you think.”

Brienne tears her gaze up to meet his, her eyes, if possible, even more vibrant now, as only small beams of moonlight hit the sapphires hiding within those orbs, leaving the rest a bit more in the dark, obscured by it.

“If it makes you feel more at ease, consider it a debt I pay back for what happened back in the woods, or whatever else you may choose of my oh so many, oh so vile crimes, but just… stop fighting me for once, wench, and see that I am trying to be of… _help_.”

She looks at him for a long moment.

At some point, Jaime can't believe himself to even make the effort to try to convince the wench of plainly going to bed instead of being the stubborn creature she nearly always proves to be.

Why should he care? And what should she care about what Jaime has to say on the matter?

If Jaime were Brienne’s husband, then perchance he could command her back to bed, back to reason, but they are by no means husband and wife. And upon reflection, even in a reality where they would be bound by the vow Jaime has forgone so many years ago in favor of a spot at the Kingsguard, to be by his sister’s side, Jaime cannot fathom a reality wherein Brienne of Tarth would submit to her husband’s commands.

“I just don’t see the problem, in all earnest, I don’t. So you will have to tell me, Brienne.”

She sucks her lower lip into her mouth pensively, taking her time before she raises her voice to speak, “In the woods, it makes no difference if you scream. The leaves, the trees, they swallow your sounds, once you move away far enough. Just like the animals don't make the difference between Kingslayer and merchant, the heiress of Tarth and a tavern wench, they don’t make the difference between the owl’s hoot, the raven’s croak, the deer’s bellow, or a shout on a foolish woman’s lips as she awakes from yet another nightmare. That is why I rather would have stayed in the woods. It was safe for me there, if in a strange way, admittedly.”

Brienne licks her lips, her gaze still averted, off to the side, away from Jaime, out of his reach, into the darkness reflecting back into her big blue orbs on the verge of falling into the abyss hiding in the shadows.

“It’s bad enough for me that you caught that in the first place. I rather keep those private matters to myself. It's no one’s concern but mine, in my opinion. And more than anything, I wished you’d just forget about it all and leave me to sit in the chair to greet the sun once it rises. I just… I cannot take up with that right now, Ser. I rather spend a sleepless night than suffer through it fighting you on this nonsensical matter. You need the sleep more than I do. You are still in the healing process from a wound that could have killed you. It’s not that you owe me a debt. It is me, even if I pay it back in comparably small measures, one at a time.”

“Well, you can keep that measure for all I care,” Jaime tells her, not surprised when Brienne glowers at him, thus he goes on, “Which is to say that you shouldn’t think your dour head sore on the matter. I wouldn’t want to ask how many times I woke you up with my screams ever since they chopped of my hand. Needless to say, if it’s the bear pit you are referring to, there is no debt to be paid.”

Brienne frowns at him.

“What? You saved my life. That means I owe you, Ser. Unless you were to say that it meant nothing to you, which…,” Brienne argues, though Jaime interrupts her before that thought can even take root in reality, “Most certainly not. I may be reckless at times, but I don’t risk my life for nothing. Rest assured. But what I mean to say is that my jumping into the bear pit does not mean that you owe me a debt. I did so on my own, however reckless it may have been.”

“ _Very_ reckless,” she grumbles.

“Just my point,” he snorts. “That still doesn’t mean you owe me a debt.”

“Most people would be inclined to think so.”

“Well, I am not most people,” Jaime huffs. “I made a choice to save you, after I made the wrong choice to ever leave you with Locke and his men. At best, you could consider it my debt paid through the leap into the bear pit, but that doesn’t make it your debt to carry instead. Needless to mention that only the Lannisters always pay their debts.”

“I pay mine, too,” Brienne insists stubbornly.

_Of course she does._

“I know,” he agrees with the hint of a smile, amused at the strange familiarity that comes with Brienne’s insistence on her sticking to her oaths, as though that was still a secret to Jaime. “But that one… it’s not your debt, it’s not your burden to carry. Do you understand? It’s… free of charge, if you will.”

He rolls his left wrist in the air, if a little clumsily. Ever move of his seems clumsy now, for all Jaime cares. He has to relearn so, so many things.

“Nothing’s free of charge in this world,” Brienne argues, shaking her head slightly. “If that is one of the things I learned by now, then it is that there is always a price to pay. There is always a debt to obliterate. I am used to having to work and fight for whatever is given to me. I had to fight for my place in Renly’s Kingsguard, however short-lived it was. Already as a child, I always…”

Brienne stops, sucks her lower lip into her mouth, seemingly biting down a comment she deems to private to share with him, before she goes on to add in a quieter voice, “I always had to fight, for all my life. And pay back in interest whenever someone gave me something.”

“Not to me,” Jaime argues simply. To him, it never really occurred that Brienne owed him for getting her out of the bear pit. To Jaime, it was what he owed to himself, his broken, rusty sense of honor, of what is the right thing in a world full of injustices.

Jaime never considered it that Brienne would have to repay him. Truly, the act came free of charge. He’d never demand anything in turn. That never crossed his mind.

But then again, perhaps that is something uniting Brienne and Jaime in spirit far closer than one could expect, looking at this unlike pair they are. Jaime always had a sense of his actions not coming free of charge, that whatever he took for himself came at sacrifice. And apparently, Brienne has the same notion, nurtured by past experiences she is not willing to share, where every time she took something inevitably led to something being taken from her.

Thus, to have someone try to explain to her that something of the sort of jumping into a bear pit to save her is free of charge may be harder to stomach for Brienne than Jaime firstly anticipated.

_You just become weary of gifts for free when you were made aware how every gift comes with a price._

Brienne looks at him for a moment, then two, until they scatter all around the room, stretching into one long silence.

“Not to me,” Jaime repeats, likely for nothing beside filling the room with something beside the silence looming between them.

Jaime searches her eyes in the darkness, and finds blue glistening within the blackness stretching all around her in the corner, leaving him to wish for her to step back into the milky light where Brienne stood tall and strong some time ago. Having her in the darkness makes Jaime think back to crimson sinking into the sand, has him think about the stands, the darkness engulfing him as he lost his hand.

And Jaime finds that he has had enough of that darkness, at least for this one night.

He exhales slowly. “So… can you just come back to bed, Brienne? Now that we settled the record that you don't owe me any debts, specifically those regarding my night’s rest?”

In the darkness wrapping itself around her like a cloak, he can still see Brienne’s hands moving on their own, twisting the bracelet looped around her wrist round and round, pressing against the milky skin on the underside of her arm once after each turn.

Jaime already prepares for yet another argument meant to convince her to finally yield at last, but that is when there is movement outside the circle of the bracelet around her forearm, a movement reaching outside the cycle, back into the light cast through the small window, painting a tall frame in milky white again.

“But you do not get to complain,” is the first thing Brienne says, having stepped back into the light, much to Jaime’s amusement.

“When do I ever complain?”

“You mean, when don't you?” she huffs, making Jaime laugh.

_That is more like the stubborn woman I know._

More like the woman who grew to be strangely familiar to him, giving him a sense of belonging on a journey where most of his roots, most of his stem, was cut away along with his hand.

“True again. But trust me in this, I will not. I will only if you don't get going here. The night’s still considerably young. We might have an actual chance of getting some sleep before sunrise,” Jaime says, already moving back over to his side of the bed, so not to leave Brienne under any illusion that he is not intent on following through with his suggestion.

For matters of demonstration, Jaime makes sure to lie down fast on his side of the bed. He waits for a good number of seconds before he can feel the mattress dip under Brienne’s weight.

While Jaime keeps his back to her for now, he can hear her twisting that wristband round and round again.

“What are you thinking about now that prevents you from lying down?” he sighs, making his annoyance as overt as possible for the wench to get the hint.

“I may have another nightmare.”

“Then so you will. And so I will rouse you. Worked last time, too, did it not?”

He can feel the bed shift again as she swings her long legs onto the straw-filled mattress.

“But I may cry out again.”

“Then so you cry out again,” Jaime replies, closing his eyes. The mattress shifts and rustles as Brienne leans her head down on the pillow.

“Or scream.”

“Then so you scream,” he exhales, leaving the “I will be there” left unspoken for good measure, though he finds it at the top of his tongue, _for whatever the reason_.

Brienne says nothing after that, the only language of hers being her breath slowly, very slowly evening out.

And along with her breath, Jaime finds his own finding a steady rhythm, gently rocking him to sleep, bathed in the light of the moon, hushing the dark images of crimson on a wooden stump, crimson in a sandy arena out of his mind, away, far away, banning them to the corner by the unlit fireplace, cast down to the abyss hiding in the shadows.

And only by sun’s rise will Jaime realize that the moon’s shine seems to have fended off not only his own darkness colored in red, but also that of his stubborn companion with blue eyes, who makes no sound, no single shout, only emits the familiar heat brushing against him until the sun comes out.

And for the fraction of a moment, Jaime does wonder.

Is that what home feels like?


	3. Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne can't seem to find any rest ever since they arrived in King's Landing. 
> 
> Until she finds a way, if unexpectedly. 
> 
> I suck at summaries. Goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking around, commenting and kudoing... and being patient with me!!! You are all kinds of fabulousness. 
> 
> Warning: I know shit about chess, I only ever use it for thematic purposes.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. 
> 
> We are now diving into Brienne's thought for the first time! Can't leave it only ever just to Jaime, right? 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

Arriving somewhere is a curious thing, especially if it is a place you do not know.

Safe for images and outlines on faded maps or yellowed pages in a dusty book you may be able to trace with your fingers, but do only ever represent the location they mean to reduce to a few curved lines.

Brienne realized that already when she followed Renly’s call to the banners.

For her, it was the first time in her life, to leave the familiar sapphire blue waters of her home isle in favor of the unrequited love she made her promise, her reason to live and to die for, believing to have found fulfillment once she could call herself one of his Kingsguard.

Arriving somewhere, it feels as though the journey still goes on, even though you reached your destination, at least it does to Brienne. While on the road, she knew none of the places, none of the people she encountered, traveled across, trespassed. She only ever knew the traces and outlines on faded maps that she memorized before setting out on her quest to escort Ser Jaime to King’s Landing.

And King’s Landing, now that they have reached it? To Brienne, it doesn’t feel like she arrived somewhere, she still feels like a traveler who should be packing her bags to carry on with the journey.

Brienne is familiar with the foreign, that’s not it. She is used to new smells, new people’s faces in a crowd, new sounds, new voices. The life she chose demands it of her that she can adapt to a new situation quickly. If that means to play along with Jaime’s lies about why they were travelling through the Seven Kingdoms to the Starkmen, then she can do that, then she will do that.

 _Even though that lie didn’t save us in the end either_ , Brienne thinks to herself, still remembering quite vividly the rush of blood in her ears and the fear she swallowed down as she started the attack on the Starkmen, the way she always buries fright deep within herself when her body takes over and does anything to ensure her survival or the fulfillment of her mission.

It was the same when Renly died, and she was only ever granted to hold him as he died, her body took over as the men attacked. No matter how frozen she was on the inside, her body went on, her body goes on.

In search for something in the distance, whatever it may be.

Taking her to different places over and over.

King’s Landing proves to be particularly strange to her, however.

_Maybe because Renly was here once._

And a part of Brienne wanted to take his paths, make footsteps where he once set his feet upon the ground, leaving no trails for her to retrace, retract from the past to somehow bring back to the present to make her pain over his death any less stabbing, a little duller, a little more bearable, perhaps.

However, that likely _very_ nonsensical wish of hers lasted only for a day or two, as she kept reminding herself that Renly is dead now, that he won’t ever come back, and that thanks to the shadow with the face of Stannis Baratheon, his own blood, his own kin, a man who should have loved him more to have him killed with dark magic.

_A man who should have more honor, if he is sincere in wanting to become the next king._

Thus, Brienne has a hard time believing that it’s that particular thought keeping her up, keeping her legs restless, even though she should take a break, catch her breath.

_So what is it, if not Renly’s ghost hiding in the crevices of the Red Keep?_

Brienne had to realize already before sunset that her night’s sleep would remain disturbed by obscure thoughts she couldn’t put her finger on. Thus, once darkness claimed the Red Keep, painting red walls a dark shade of mulberry, Brienne put on her boots, laced her leather jacket that she was thankfully given upon arrival at the palace, _upon Jaime’s insistence_ , and out the door she went.

Only in the gardens, illuminated by the moonlight raining down on roses that are red by day but mauve by night and richly green shrubs, did Brienne find herself a bit more at ease as a gust of air caught in her blonde hair, blowing some of her unease away, far away, northwards. 

Brienne, over time, learned to be more at rest in the embrace of nature than of royalty.

As a young girl, she realized that no matter her secret fancy of the lady’s tasks and duties, Brienne was not made of the graceful, porcelain-like stuff it took to be a frail maiden a young lordling would be so enchanted with to feel inspired to sweep her off her feet to carry to her to a better life. Thus, the conclusion seemed rather straightforward for the only living heiress of Tarth, which was to pursue her own honor’s quest instead of waiting for a knight or lordling to come defend it, conquer it, win it – because that ominous lad would never come.

Fencing lessons with Goodwin took place of hours spent with needlework, steel took the place of silk, the dance of swords overtook the dance reserved for the feasts and balls, mud the stony ground of Evenfall Hall, a large boulder by the coasts of the Sapphire Isle with its blue waters took the place of her chamber if sadness got the better of young Brienne despite her efforts, forcing tears out of her eyes she wanted nothing but to conceal from the world.

Nature with its meadows and ledges, coasts and beaches, creeks and forests, offered Brienne a strange sort of safety wherein she was to herself, where no one could catch her, tie her down, now practicing the arts of the sword when she was still no good at it, or when tears rolled down freckled, blotched cheeks after yet another boy had commented on her ugliness, and Brienne only ever allowed the tears to fall once she was safe in nature’s embrace, after she did her best not to show her tears, as Renly had once told her.

 ** _After_** _I wiped the floor with most of the stupid boys, of course_ , she thinks to herself rather amused. _At least once I got proper fighting lessons._

So perhaps it’s Brienne’s search for familiarity that brings her here, back to nature, to a place within the foreign land of the capital where she can get at least a slightly more palpable feeling of familiarity.

Most flowers look the same, as do most shrubs. While none are _exactly_ the same, they are alike enough to create an air of belonging even when Brienne feels like she belongs anywhere but King’s Landing.

Similarity can also create a sense of familiarity, at least in her own experience.

Brienne looks around, allowing her eyes to drift away from the world she doesn’t know, up to the world she _does_ know, having observed the stars countless times during countless nights on Tarth, sitting on her windowsill to gaze at the space above that seemed far less limiting than the world below.

She can spot the Crone’s Lantern with ease, though once Brienne does, something within her sinks as though a heavy weight just dropped inside her body, collapses into the spit of her stomach to knock the air out of her.

It makes her think of Lady Catelyn.

The news of her death and that of her kin still haven’t quite sunken in for Brienne, something that sizzles on her skin, but didn’t reach much deeper yet, until now, it seems.

It was one of the first things she learned upon arrival, more or less _by the way_ , as she announced to be in service of Lady Catelyn to see Ser Jaime off to King’s Landing as boldly as ever when asked what business she had here. Needless to say that Jaime was instantly all over the men whose faces Brienne didn’t know by the time, telling them that she was with him and that this was all that was of their concern.

The words slipped from the stranger’s mouth with so little effort that it took Brienne quite long to even grasp the message that had come with the sounds tumbling out of his mouth, into the world.

And suddenly, it became clear to her in such vivid detail that Brienne forgot to breathe. Lady Catelyn – dead, slaughtered at her brother’s wedding. A vile act committed by Freys and Jaime’s own family.

Brienne didn’t know she was holding her breath until Jaime muttered at her to take a deep breath as they were led down the corridors leading into the Red Keep.

At some point she was glad to be escorted to the baths to clean herself, wash herself not just of the mud, blood, and grime of the journey, but also of the words of Lady Catelyn’s demise. Only once she was sure to be by herself in the scented water did Brienne allow the tears to fall, and let them mix with the scented water as though they’d never been there in the first place.

Because she lost again. She failed again.

First Renly, now Lady Catelyn.

Brienne starts to wonder if that is what will continue to happen to anyone she vows service to, which is a dreadful thought for her to even consider.

_What else do I have to offer but my service?_

If she cannot commit herself to a lord or lady, then what use is Brienne in a world where mannish women are in fact not swept off their big feet to be carried to a better life?

Brienne chose a knight’s life without being raised to that honor through accolade to choose perhaps the one honorable way of expressing a love she always knew would be unrequited, by joining Renly’s Kingsguard, swearing herself to him and his cause.

And she swore herself to Lady Catelyn and her cause because Lady Catelyn was a good woman, a kind woman, a courageous woman Brienne thought she could follow without finding her honor besmirched.

And now, both are gone.

One she held only but as he died, the other she didn’t even have a chance to protect, to save, to hold as life left her.

 _If the Gods are true and if the Gods are just, then how do they let such injustice happen_? she can’t help but wonder as her eyes keep drifting back to the Crone’s Lantern shining down on her.

Brienne prays to the Crone that she may guide Lady Catelyn to a safe place at last, to the Heaven of her choosing. If it’s one of the Seven or that of the Old Gods her husband used to pray to, Brienne doesn’t know. She just hopes that Lady Catelyn will, at the least, be granted that bit of rest, after she, too, found herself so far away from home when all she ever wanted was to be just there, to be with her family.

Brienne sighs as she lowers her head again, setting back into motion, back to the Red Keep. She knows she cannot spend the whole night out in the gardens. Though the Maid of Tarth also knows that will do nothing much but lie wide awake once she returns to her chamber. No matter the comfort of the bed, Brienne is fairly certain that she will not find rest at the capital.

Now that Lady Catelyn is dead, Brienne’s mind keeps running circles around young Lady Sansa and the dangers she is exposed to here at court. Or rather, how to get her out of this battle field without swords and shields, but only ever using the weapons of scheme, split tongues, betrayal, and power games.

The Game of Thrones.

Deep down, Brienne knows that Jaime had a point when he told her that nothing much could be done about the situation, or rather, that taking Sansa away without permit may mean even greater risk for Lady Catelyn’s daughter, now that she was wed to Jaime’s dwarfish brother, is bound to court with invisible chains.

_Not that I am going to let him know about that. Jaime would enjoy that way too much._

Because she stands by it – just because it may be difficult, perhaps impossible even, doesn’t release either one of them from a vow. And they made a vow, they both did.

Brienne twists the bracelet bound about her wrist round and round as she makes her way back to the palace, mentally preparing herself for the inevitable of staring at the ceiling once she retires to her bedchamber. It helps ease some of the tension, but not nearly enough for her to catch her breath.

The young woman sighs as she makes her way into the building, instantly feeling the walls close in on her, compared to the freedom she felt in the gardens. Mindful of her steps, Brienne walks down the corridors dimly lit with the torches hanging on the walls, painting the walls even more vibrant shades of scarlet, gold, and apricot.

The sound of footsteps has Brienne stop in her tracks.

At that hour, no one should be around anymore. And Brienne knows from yesterday night’s stroll through the gardens that the guards don’t patrol around there during that time. About that time, they make their rounds by the newly proclaimed though unkingly King’s chambers. They only turn up there half an hour from now.

Feeing tension and agitation rising within her at once, Brienne already means to lean down to grab the small knife she carries in her boot, her body taking over, but then her mind gains the upper hand again as she catches sight of the one thing of familiarity in a foreign land of strangeness.

“Ser Jaime?”

“Ha, I thought it must be you,” he says as he motions closer, an easy sort of smile tugging at his lips. Brienne finds herself exhaling as she straightens back up, leaving the dagger in her boot.

Jaime looks very much different now, almost like a man peeled out of an eggshell of mud and grime. The hair cropped short, clean-shaven, clad in speckless cotton tunic and breeches, Jaime looks far more like a man betting of his rank.

The first time Brienne saw Jaime like this, she had to blink twice to even recognize him. That irritation only ever lasted until he met her gaze, however, and gave her his typical sort of smile that assured her that this is still the man she got to know over the course of their quest to King’s Landing.

“I beg your pardon?” she asks, licking her lips.

“I was just about to go outside to see who is roaming through the gardens at that hour. Considering… the latest development… I suppose one cannot be careful enough,” he tells her.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to…,” Brienne means to apologize, but Jaime stops her before she can get to the part, “Brienne, stop that at once. We’ve been there already, and I don’t need revisiting.”

“Fine,” she grumbles.

“Good,” he huffs. “So? What makes you roam around, risking being shot down by one of the guards?”

Brienne tilts her head to the side slightly. “For that, they’d have to catch me off-guard in the first place.”

“True again,” he laughs.

“I just needed some fresh air,” she adds.

“So you didn’t search for secret passageways to steal a young Stark daughter?”

“I would do no such thing,” Brienne grumbles.

_At least not without talking to him about it first._

Jaime gives her another smile. “Oh, right, I almost forgot, you are far too honorable for that.”

Brienne licks her lips. “I hope I didn’t rouse you with my… wandering about.”

“I was awake anyway,” he assures her quickly.

“Were you?” she asks, to which Jaime does nothing much but roll his eyes at her. “I am still in my clothes that I wore last time you saw me during the day, and the bed is still as I left it this morning, so _yes_ , I was.”

“Then what kept you awake?”

“As if I’d know. A part of me was tempted to start writing again, or try to scribble something with my left that could be read by someone. I abandoned the idea quite quickly, though. I wouldn’t fancy getting ink all over myself, as clumsy as my left hand happens to be,” Jaime huffs, the frustration showing on his features.

“It will take some time to relearn it,” Brienne says, hoping to offer a bit of comfort, though she knows she is not very good at it. She wouldn’t have known how to console Lady Catelyn for being away from her youngest sons, her daughters, even though she wanted to, many times.

“You seem to be more optimistic about the matter than I am,” Jaime laughs, though this chuckle sounds different. While the first were light in tone, that one is heavy with something else.

Bitterness.

Shame.

The feeling of being incapable of things that should be within grasp.

And Brienne can very well understand that. While she cannot fathom what it must be like for a knight like Ser Jaime to have lost his sword hand, Brienne tends to believe she understands the feeling of being useless.

“I am not optimistic,” she argues.

That is something no one’s ever called her.

“Then what would you call that?” Jaime asks, to which Brienne just rolls her shoulders. “I simply take a good guess.”

_He almost beat me while wrapped in chains, he defended me from Locke’s men while in chains, he spoke up to me and my safety to Lord Bolton when he had no need for it, and he jumped into a bear pit to save me, with only just a single hand._

A man who does that can do anything in her opinion.

And more.

“Ah, but don’t be angry with me if I dare to disappoint,” he snorts.

“I wouldn’t,” Brienne insists. “I just know that you can relearn those things.”

“You cannot relearn instincts,” Jaime argues, shaking his head. “Mine are all wrong now.”

“It just takes time,” Brienne objects, if quietly.

“Well, according to some, I don’t have left much of it anyway,” Jaime lets out a dry laugh that has Brienne’s skin crawl.

“Who says so?” she demands to know.

Jaime shrugs at her.

And Brienne knows better than to ask for something he doesn’t want to share, so instead she only repeats, “You just need to train.”

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to be as good with my right as I was before Locke chopped off my hand? It’d take me a second life to, _perchance_ , get anywhere close to passable again,” Jaime insists, letting more and more frustration bubble to the surface.

Brienne bites her lip. Maybe she should just leave it at that, but… she cannot stop right now. She wants to be sure that he hears it. What Jaime makes of it is up to him and him alone. 

“Well, ever the more a reason to train,” Brienne tells him. “Then that means your second life has a purpose already.”

Whereas Brienne dares to doubt that there will be any purpose in her, granted that she cannot fulfill Lady Catelyn’s will of bringing Lady Sansa back home, she has quite another view on the future laid out for the man before her.

To Brienne, there is no doubt that there is still a long road for Ser Jaime to travel, obstacles to overcome, and turn out victor. She cannot shake off the feeling that there is a greater purpose to this man most write off as only just the Kingslayer. They wouldn’t be here if not for him. King’s Landing would not be what it is now if not for Jaime’s act of bravery back during a Mad King’s reign, his finest act.

A man who served such a purpose surely has something else to offer, something else to do. The Gods must want more of him, must need more of him. It’s about the likes of Ser Jaime that hymns are sung, ballads are composed, stories written.

It’s men the likes of Ser Jaime Lannister who leave echoes reaching into the future and the past.

It’s the men the likes of Ser Jaime Lannister who will leave traces in this world, Brienne is certain of that.

“We will have to see,” Jaime sighs, and if Brienne is not mistaken, her words, however plain, however unimportant in world’s course, somehow reached beneath his skin after all.

“So? Are you to retire to your chamber or will you be busy staring at the ceiling once you get there?” he goes on to ask, a kind of knowing smile adding to his expression, reminding Brienne that Jaime is one of the few, _if not the only one_ , who knows her around here, who is familiar with her person.

Who knows the _real_ her, if only just as much as Brienne let her defenses fall ever since their strange journey began.

Though some of her defenses came crumbling on the way back to King’s Landing, when Brienne admitted to Jaime at last that she could not sleep.

And that despite the fact that she could not seek refuge in the woods, could not escape, had nowhere to run, and had no other choice but stay.

However, more surprising to her than was her yielding to him through telling Jaime was that he understood and… made her stay, didn’t leave her alone, didn’t let her run off into the woods to conceal her tears and only ever let them happen where no one could see.

“Why would I stare at the ceiling?” Brienne questions, wrinkling her nose.

“Because you are wandering around again. Knowing you and your queer ways, that is because you can’t sleep, _yet again_. As I already said, we’ve been here before, Brienne. A different location doesn't change much about it,” he explains, his eyes lingering on the wristband of hers for a longer moment.

 _Perhaps he is a bit too familiar with me already_ , Brienne thinks to herself, suddenly feeling fright rise within her, because she is not used to sharing those things. She is used to hiding them away, locking them away, keeping them behind pursed lips.

“I slept just fine,” is all she gets out for a reply, though that doesn’t satisfy Jaime, obviously.

“Which is why you keep roaming through the gardens at that hour,” he huffs.

“As I said, I needed some fresh air,” Brienne insists, feeling embarrassed again.

She is by far too used to conceal weakness and hide it away in forests and shadows to let them to the light before the man she owes so much to.

“Because you lack it in your room. There’s a huge window there. _Please_ ,” Jaime huffs. “I’ve seen to that.”

Brienne blinks once, twice. He’s seen to some many things, or so Brienne had to notice ever since she came to stay at the capital, when she believed him to forget about her the moment on he crossed the threshold of the Red Keep.

He’s seen to it that the guards treat her with all due respect, and keep her safe as they escorted them through the Red Keep when they first came here. And he rewards them with sharp looks whenever he can hear them whisper, too.  

He’s seen to it that she gets new clothes.

He’s seen to it that said clothes fit Brienne well enough, and don’t look as ridiculous on her as did that pink dress back at Harrenhal.

He’s seen to it that Brienne gets a chamber with big window so she can look outside, seemingly not having forgotten about her finding refuge in nature, in the vastness of it, when her sleep is interrupted by images of bears in pits, laughter, blood, dread, fear, and the threat of Jaime being slain by that beast, too.

He’s seen to it that she gets to see Sansa, following the news of Lady Catelyn’s demise, which left Brienne devastated, seemingly wanting to give her something to hold on to when everything else kept slipping away from her.

He’s seen to many things, and likely more than Brienne caught until now.

And the Maid of Tarth can’t remember the last time someone’s done that for her, at least not in that way, not to that extent. Over and over.

Which seems ever the more surprising coming from a man Brienne once told that she didn’t care about how he died, only to find out that she cared much more than she’d ever let on.

“Well, if it pleases you, yes, I have been rather restless. I assume it just takes me some time to accustom to the new surroundings,” Brienne says eventually, building up her defenses as fast and as high as she can manage, suddenly feeling trapped.

Trapped in what she cannot think of in any other way but kindness.

She is not used to kindness coming from people who don’t have to give it to her. Safe for her father, Renly, and Lady Catelyn, there was no one, really.

But this man with his cutting comments and japes somehow entered those ranks.

“It _doesn't_ please me,” Jaime argues vehemently, instantly tearing some of her defenses right back down to leave her looking at him with widened eyes.

Jaime sucks the inside of his cheek into his mouth before he goes on to say, “… As I kept telling you on the way here already, I don’t accept that you wear yourself down with your goddamn stubbornness. You don’t get to perish after I bravely rescued you. In case you forgot.”

“I don’t do it on purpose. I just cannot sleep, even though I try,” Brienne objects.

It's not like she has to hide her screams away, she knows that. Brienne can shut the heavy doors to muffle the anguished sounds she may make in her sleep. And that surely added some reassurance to her that should have eased most of the tension out of her. It’s just that Brienne cannot close her eyes and drift away for most of the night, no matter the things Jaime has seen to, no matter how often she presses the wristband against her arm to absorb some of the calming oils. Her body will eventually yield to empty slumber, but it always feels like only just the blink of an eye.

“I know all that. I am just…,” Jaime says, but then stops himself.

Brienne frowns, quickly averting her gaze, not wanting him to see her want to know just what he meant to say reflecting in her big blue eyes.

Silence spreads around them, and that seems to kick him back into action.

Jaime lets out a sigh, shaking his head. “As it appears, we still seem to share the same… lack of sleep. We are alike after all, if only in the troublesome aspects.”

“It appears so, yes,” Brienne says slowly.

“Well, then we might just as well share in the suffering, wouldn’t you agree?” Jaime goes on to suggest.

“You mean to say?”

Jaime rolls his shoulders. “We could go to my chamber and talk a while longer. Who knows? Maybe you will tire me about as fast as I tire you with our constant jesting. I’d just rather sit than stand in the hallways for the matter,” he says, gesturing around.

Brienne sucks the inside of her cheek into her mouth, not knowing what to say, how to act, and if she doesn’t know, Brienne is bound to silence, even if she wanted to just speak her mind.

She is too used to swallowing it down.

Just like her tears.

“You won’t turn shy on the matter now, will you? After we’ve slept next to each other how many nights?” Jaime huffs, keeping his tone light, seemingly conscious of the fact that it’s no light matter to her.

“I am not, it’s just…,” she stammers, and he interrupts her, looking at her expectantly, “It’s just what?”

Brienne says nothing, cannot say anything, finds her lips sealed again.

The words won’t come.

She learned to tame them.

Keep them behind bars.

Only ever let them out once she is by herself.

Once she knows no one can see or hear.

“Then come,” Jaime says with resolution.

And Brienne knows Jaime is not taking no for an answer. Thus, she finds herself trotting after the Lord Commander, which feels strangely familiar to the times when it was just the two of them, walking over fields and through forests.

Though there is no leash now.

And no trees.

Just them.

Only them.

Jaime leads her to his chamber wordlessly, his footsteps fast, but not too fast, so that she is bound to keep his pace, but doesn’t get lost without him.

Brienne has been by that room before. The first time when Jaime showed her to her bedchamber, seemingly _insisting_ on doing that duty himself. He showed her that door and said to Brienne that she could come there if there was ever any trouble, in a hushed voice making no echo to reach further down the corridors, making the words resonate only ever between the two. After that, he showed her to her chamber as though nothing ever happened, as though that whisper had never travelled past his lips.

Ever since then, Brienne found herself passing by that door during her nightly strolls over and over, lingering there for a moment or two, before bowing her head and carrying on, feeling foolish for having considered for only just a second to maybe knock on his door.

_And now?_

Now she doesn’t have to knock because Jaime opens the door for her, bidding her inside wordlessly.

However, Brienne finds her feet unmoving as she stands by the opened portal, warm, shining light of the candles lit in his room almost luring her inside, but only just almost.

“Will you just keep standing there?” Jaime huffs when he notices her hesitance. “Brienne?”

But she finds herself unable to move, still.

And yet again, unable to speak.

“Is everything alright?” he goes ahead to ask, his frown deepening, gaining more and more concern.

Brienne says nothing, just stands there in the hallway, averting her gaze the best she can.

How do you explain to someone that very foolery?

How do you explain to someone that you aren’t made for other people comforting you?

How do you explain to someone that while you may need the comfort, you cannot accept it?

How do you say the words that you find sealed behind your lips?

“You will have to say what is wrong, you know?” Jaime goes on. “Or else I don't think we will find a solution.”

“I am sorry, I shouldn’t have come with… it was… I should go, I…,” Brienne says, already meaning to whirl around to leave again.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says.

And the words seem to pull her back when his hand does not, cannot.

“Stay.”

And Brienne finds herself stopping in her tracks.

“Come in.”

And she passes the threshold at once, as though it was the easiest thing in the world, as though Jaime’s voice was the only thing that could ever guide her across, make her trespass to arrive somewhere.

Brienne blinks as Jaime closes the door behind them, taking in her surroundings.

“Was that so difficult now?” he snorts.

 _You’d have no idea._ Brienne means to say, but then does not, because if she were to let those words slip from her mouth, he would ask further questions, would force more of her out of herself, and Brienne feels as htough she left too much of her out in the open for him to see anyway.

_Ser Jaime lost his hand. He just got home after all he went through. If I wanted to repay my debt to him, I would do better not to burden him with my little nothingnesses._

“Have a seat,” Jaime goes on to say, _or rather orders_ , gesturing at her to take her seat on the chaise lounge standing behind a small, wooden table. Brienne simply does it before he will go on insisting on the matter.

Before he asks more questions.

Brienne feels irritatingly inadequate sitting on the chaise lounge, however, as though she is taking up too much space. Thus, she does her best to keep her arms close to the sides of her body and her legs pressed together. Brienne doesn’t even dare to breathe in too deeply, no matter how ridiculous that may be.

She feels as though she was invading a private space of Jaime’s that she is not entitled to, despite the fact that he invited her inside, she knows.

Because it isn’t her place to be private, to be herself.

It’s not familiar.

Not eve similar, like the shrubs and roses are in King’s Landing’s gardens.

This is all too strange.

Way too strange.

“Small wonder that you get no sleep like that. You will pull a muscle if you keep that up. Fair warning,” Jaime huffs, watching her, as he leans over the table with the intention of pouring them a cup of wine from the glass flagon set there. “And before you argue against it, wine can work wonders to make you sleepy. Both my siblings swear by that stuff, for any occasion or trouble.”

The young woman watches Jaime as he, _very_ slowly, removes the glass cap of the flagon, grabs it by the handle carefully, and starts to shakily pour red arbor into the cups.

Brienne reckons that he spilled wine at some point and is now particularly careful not to make the same mistake again. She can feel his eyes on her every once in a while, as though Jaime was checking if she grew tired of it yet, to take the flagon from his grasp to quickly do it herself, but Brienne has no intention to.

They have the time.

_Where is the rush? It’s the only way that he will learn it anew._

As Jaime said, it will take him a life’s time to refine his skills with his left, but he won’t gain confidence in the movements of the hand he still has, so long Jaime doesn’t grant himself to go slow at first, doesn’t allow himself to fail and try again.

When Brienne first took a wooden sword in hand, she thought, too, that the best way was to just slash and cut ahead, surprise the enemy with her fast moves and unpredictability.

Goodwin was the one who exorcised that demon from her very fast, however. He beat Brienne into the dust with no more than a single move, before her old master-at-arms offered her a hand to help her stand again. When Brienne asked him what she did wrong, he said “everything, child,” which only added to her confusion. Goodwin went on to explain that “mastering a skill takes practice and patience foremost.” He said that she had strength in her body, no doubt, but that it’s her endurance that would save her life one day, for it is this endurance that made her suffer through going slow, slower than she ever wanted to, when all she wanted was to learn how to beat the stupid boys who kept beating her despite her efforts.

But over time, her body learned the movements, absorbed them into the fabric of her being, and with that familiarity came the speed, with that came the precision.

You have to familiarize yourself with yourself, with your own body, whatever shape it may come, or may have been turned into. 

“I suppose I should not try out as cupbearer in the future,” Jaime laughs nervously as a few drops of red wine land on the tabletop as he fills up the second cup, which costs him perhaps even more effort, judging by his pensive facial expression and the way his fingers start to twitch ever so lightly.

“That is below your rank anyway,” Brienne tells him. And if she isn't mistaken, Jaime seems to appreciate her not calling attention to his shaky hands or dribbling wine on the tabletop, but still lets him do it, let him take his time.

“That is perhaps the one consolation in it,” Jaime huffs, his eyes trained on the flagon, which makes more and more clinking sounds as his fingers keep shaking under the unfamiliar effort. “I mean, according to Father, I am no more than a bodyguard anyway, but that is still above a cupbearer, I assume.”

“It most certainly is,” Brienne says. “And even if not…”

She licks her lips once before she adds in a smaller voice, “… Then I suppose we are both only just above the level of a cupbearer.”

They took the same vow, if for different Kings, after all.

So, if that makes Jaime no more than a cupbearer for being no good with his left hand, then it makes no more of Brienne in turn, for having failed to protect her King, her Lady, and still having no clue about how to get Lady Sansa out of this whole mess.

A small smile flashes across Jaime’s features as the last cup fills to the rim at last, though that one is _rather_ full after all.

Jaime looks at her for a small moment, seemingly relieved that she did not interfere in any way. He puts the flagon down, his entire arm shaking now, but he manages to gently lower it onto the tabletop again, before capping it after a few tries, letting out a small sigh of relief once he is done.

“I seem to get better at it. Last time, I spilled wine all across the table when I dined with my brother,” Jaime huffs.

“It just takes time,” Brienne tells him in a softer voice. “And if it is you any sort of comfort: As a young girl, I once knocked over half of what was on the entire table in a single movement.”

“Really?” Jaime laughs, not at her, though, but simply relieved to no longer be the only one making a fool of himself, or rather, feeling as though he made himself a fool, because to Brienne, he isn’t.

_He’d only ever be a fool for not trying._

“During a feast no less,” Brienne admits, which has him smile at her once more. “Hm, sounds like that got you some unwanted attention.”

“I wanted to disappear into the ground below,” Brienne groans, recalling how shamed she felt for it, how much she wanted to be in the woods to hide away the tears that were on the verge of falling back then.

“Was there any certain reason why you did it?” Jaime asks curiously.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she argues.

He rolls his eyes. “Well, obviously.”

“I just got upset and wanted to leave at once. I wanted to go silently, but… well, that was around the time I had my first burst of growth. I had no clue how to move my legs and arms by the time,” Brienne tells him truthfully, though rather keeping to herself just why she was so upset.

And gladly, the Lord Commander seemingly understand that, and doesn’t bother asking any further. Instead, Jaime grabs the fuller of the cups by the decorated rim to hand over to Brienne, but some of the wine spills over the edge in the process.

“Shit,” he hisses as she takes the cup from him. “Yeah, I make shit for a cupbearer, no way of denying it. Sorry.”

“It’s no bother,” she argues.

“It is – to me,” Jaime argues, gesturing at her. “I even got some speckles on your dress, Seven Hells.”

“That washes away,” Brienne replies. “Maybe I should wear more wine colors from now on.”

Jaime laughs at that. “You in Lannister red? Now, that would be a sight. Or maybe we should go ahead and serve golden arbor from now on, at least so long I am around. I think the stains wash off easier.”

He grabs his own cup, holding it out to her. Brienne clanks hers against his.

“I’d say we drink to all the sleepless shit for cupbearers, then,” Jaime announces.

“Cheers,” Brienne says before taking a sip.

Jaime waits a moment longer before taking a swig, muttering “cheers” into his cup.

He looks down, only now taking notice of the stains on the table, suppressing a groan of frustration.

Brienne removes the cup from her lips, the heat that she always feels when drinking wine almost instantly going up to her head, before simply running her sleeve over the stains wordlessly.

Jaime looks at her with a mixture of irritation and appreciation as she leans back again, feeling more confident to take up space now.

“You don’t see it on brown anyway,” is all she says before quickly taking another sip of the wine making her feel warm inside. Jaime only ever chuckles at her in turn.

It’s not like Brienne has to pretend to be lady-like around Jaime. She never bothered about it anyway. Because she is no lady, as she told Lady Catelyn already when they first met. However, if that is all it takes to bring a small smile back to Jaime’s lips, then Brienne is perhaps ever the more relieved for not minding breaking those rules of what is considered proper behavior, of what is considered convention.

Jaime sits down on the chair next to the chaise lounge, his fingers still wrapped around the cup’s rim.

“Well, at least the wine is far better than the ale we got on our journey,” he huffs, glancing into the cup.

“It is,” she agrees.

Jaime takes another sip, she copies the movement, feeling more and more warmth spread throughout her.

“Have you written to your Father just yet? I forgot to ask,” Jaime questions.

“The day after we arrived, yes,” Brienne says, licking her lips. “I wouldn’t want to have him believe that he’d still have to pay my ransom. And I hope it calmed him some to know that we arrived safely at the capital… well, _however_ safely.”

“We made it in _almost_ one piece after all. More than could be expected, I assume,” Jaime says, taking another sip of the wine. They continue like that for a while longer, only ever making noises when they lift the cups to their lips, getting drunk on the wine as well as the warmth.

Jaime is the one to break the silence first. “… How are you…”

He stops himself, however, takes another sip, tasting the words on his tongue, testing them in his mouth, before he goes on in a hushed voice, “… about Lady Catelyn…”

He lets out a growl of frustration, seemingly fed up with not getting out the words the way he’d want them to.

“It’s…,” Brienne says, taking a sip from the arbor to swallow down the words she’d mean to say, but would reveal too much.

It’s hard.

It's tearing her apart.

It’s like it was with Renly.

Or maybe worse.

It keeps her up at night along with the nightmares still grabbing her viciously, the nightmares about Jaime’s demise, dying while protecting her.

But those are things she cannot say.

“I will come to terms,” is all she can say instead.

“Will you?” he questions, not quite believing it.

“I will have to,” Brienne says with a small, sad smile, before taking another swig of the wine.

“True again. The world doesn’t let you catch your breath. Ever. Disaster just goes on and on and on…,” Jaime mutters, swallowing a big gulp of wine. “A wedding colored in red, for a wedding painted in Bartheon gold, Lannister crimson, and Tyrell green. This is insanity. _And of course_ , my family’s the source of it. Who knows, maybe we are related to the Targaryens after all, as mad as my clan seems to be.”

“I can’t imagine,” Brienne argues, shaking her head, welcoming the change of topics, because they lead away from her and her troubles.

“Why not? Aerys was mad and ruthless for twenty generations. And even if my father is not as mad to want to set people on fire, he makes up for it with ruthlessness that will likely be the only thing of his empire that will last a thousand years,” Jaime huffs, leaning his head back.

“Well, _he_ won’t last a thousand years.”

“But the ruthlessness will go on. That’s just the way it is. It never ends.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Brienne argues quietly.

“Oh really? How would you think can that stone be stopped from rolling down the hill to keep growing into an all-crushing avalanche, wench? I’d like to hear it,” he snorts.

“You are there,” is the simple reply.

Jaime wrinkles his nose. “Apparently. So?”

Brienne rolls her broad shoulders. “If you don’t carry it on, the avalanche will not grow. It will stop at some point down the hill.”

“You seem to forget the color of my cloak, woman. I made a solemn vow, for all it was ever worth, to not hold lands or titles. So whether I were to turn out any less ruthless than my father – _or not_ – wouldn’t make a difference. I’d never bring it to the Rock. This way or the other. That is what I have forgone in favor of… other things.”

And Brienne knows what those other things are, of course, but she chooses not to comment.

He said it.

We don't get to choose who we love.

“But only if you try you can see if it is to make a difference,” Brienne argues. “If you don't try, then surely, nothing will change, because you give it no chance. But if you grant it on… well, then it is there, however small.”

Jaime lets out a dry laugh. “You expect a bud of a flower to stop an entire avalanche?”

“Ser Galladon of Morne unsheathed his sword, the Just Maid, only thrice to win any battle he’s ever fought.”

“That is a myth I, too, already heard as a child, and will admit enjoyed a lot when I was still far too much into romanticizing knighthood,” Jaime snorts, if amused. “Remember? That guy is claimed to have brought the Maiden herself to fall in love with him to award him with that magical sword of his. A goddess, one of the Seven. I tend to think that this is more of a legend than anything else. So that doesn’t really count for a small flower stopping an avalanche in reality. Needless to mention that even if it were all true, he’d have a magical sword to help his cause. I don't call that a small flower, really.”

“… It took one man to save half a million people from a Mad King,” Brienne then says, not meeting his gaze, though she can still see Jaime’s stunned expression, how his fingers tighten around the cup.

He licks his lips nervously. “Well, the trouble prevailed, still.”

“But an avalanche came to stop. A new one came to rise with the new King, but this one? You stopped it. So, you tell me, having done that miracle already once, how comes you doubt that the flower can stop the stone from crushing the town at the foot of the mountain, when you already saw it happen?”

He says nothing at that, just drinks his wine.

“We will have to see how much a one-handed man can still achieve,” is what he concludes eventually.

“We will have to see, yes,” Brienne agrees.

And she is sure she will see a lot.

Even if she is to die before him, Brienne is certain that the world will see it, that the Gods will.

“The bracelet’s still helping?” Jaime asks, nodding at the band around her wrist.

“A bit, I assume.”

“Good.”

“And you?” she asks quietly. “How’s it with your lack of sleep?”

“Ah, I would start to miss it if I were to wake up in my bed without having soaked my shirt through with sweat at least once a night, remembering Locke’s ugly face as he cut off my hand.”

Brienne bows her head, shame washing over her. Jaime seems to realize that at once, so he adds rather hastily, “Which… is to say that it's only a matter of time. You get used to a lot of things.”

“You get used to the pain.”

“Precisely.”

You get used to pain.

You get used to being unfamiliar.

You get used to being alone.

It takes time, but you get used to it.

It takes courage to go on, but eventually, your feet will keep carrying you further, away, in search of a place where the ache is not as great, even though you are likely not to find it because you carry that pain, that loneliness in your heart.

Always.

“… Do you play?” Brienne asks, pulling Jaime out of his thoughts, back to the checkerboard on the table. He lets out a small laugh.

“I will say this: My brother put it here when he came to King’s Landing for the first time after I took my Kingsguard vows. He told me it was a gift so that I could at least _pretend_ in front of other people that I was not completely stupid,” Jaime snorts. “I smacked him for it. As an older brother, I consider that my duty, still.”

“So, you kept it only as decoration?” Brienne asks.

“I would have liked to, until the little devil _forced_ me into playing it with him. He is way too good at this game. Prides himself too much with it, too. That is perhaps the one battleground he will always turn out victor on,” Jaime huffs, before looking at her. “And you?”

“My father used to play it with me when I was younger. I didn’t really like it, I must say,” she admits.

“Oh, really?”

“I wanted to rather be outside, but we sat down almost every evening after dinner to play for some time. Father seemingly thought it’d teach that hotspur of a daughter some patience,” Brienne says with a hint of a smile creeping up her lips.

“Did it?” Jaime asks.

“I don’t think so,” she chuckles. “Or else I wouldn’t have picked up armor and sword to follow Renly.”

And that may be the first time in a long time that Brienne doesn’t find his name heavy on her tongue.

_Though it may be due to the wine, really._

“Well, considering how much trouble you got yourself into thereafter, you would have been safer at home, that much is for sure,” Jaime huffs, leaning forward in his seat, nodding at her neck. While the cut of the dress allows Brienne to conceal her healing scars, Jaime, beside that master without chains, is the only one who knows them there anyway.

Who knows that one source of her pain.

Who knows that wound of hers.

Like she knows his.

“Safer perhaps, but then again… those who only ever chase their own protection will never be able to save someone else,” Brienne argues.

Though she can’t say she protected anyone yet either, not for long, that is.

“True again…,” Jaime agrees pensively. “So… would you want to fancy playing, is that what you mean to imply?”

“I don’t mean to imply anything,” Brienne replies defensively, feeling as though she reached too far within that private space of his yet again.

Feeling caught again.

Which makes her want to run, but keeps her right where she is the same way.

“Would you want to play?” Jaime asks another time, stressing each word with growing annoyance. “The question is not that difficult to answer, is it?”

“… I wouldn’t say no,” Brienne says eventually, not meeting his gaze.

“Which, by implication, means yes,” Jaime says, seemingly satisfied with himself for having convinced her, or rather, managing to make admit that she’d like it. “Well, if you are ready to suffer through me knocking over all pawns with my clumsy left?”

“Well, gladly, this is a kind of war where you can pick the fallen ones just back up,” Brienne says, which has Jaime smiling at her again. “True again.”

And so they start to play chess, which seems rather absurd to Brienne, who’s been quite set in her belief that she would spent that night alone again.

Brienne feels only ever reminded of playing with her father, but soon the memories keep fading as she watches Jaime, whose fingers move slowly, carefully, and twitch nervously when he can’t seem to grasp the black chess pieces right, landing on the wrong field, or knocking a few over every once in a while.

And she finds herself pulled into the present where she isn’t alone – and where he isn’t alone either.

“That will take forever,” he groans.

“We have the time.”

He chuckles, “So we just abandon sleep for the night?”

“I’d abandon it this way or the other.”

“Oh, and the other way including myself is better? Now I feel honored.”

Brienne shakes her head with a hint of a smile.

Jaime removes one of her pawns, his fingers moving rather swiftly this time, which brings a hint of a smile to his face the same way.

It is true after all, it’s a matter of training.

A matter of familiarity.

“I keep thinking,” he says, running his index and middle finger over the corners of his mouth pensively. “What are your next steps?”

“Hm?” She looks up from the checkerboard to meet his gaze. “I won’t tell you my next move.”

“Not the chess game. I mean… life more generally… Will you mean to return to Tarth? Or go wherever else it may pull you in your endless quest of honor?”

“Lady Sansa is here,” Brienne replies.

“So you will stay wherever she stays?” Jaime questions. “Is that what you are saying?”

“I don’t know… I assume that is what it is, then. I swore to Lady Catelyn to protect her daughters… if what you said back by the terrace is true, then searching for Lady Arya is even more futile than would be to try to be there for Lady Sansa… if she lets me, that is,” Brienne says pensively, removing one of his rooks. “So it seems that this may be one way of moving now.”

“So… you’d keep in King’s Landing for that girl’s protection alone,” Jaime says, removing one of her knights this time.

“If I must,” Brienne replies, removing another pawn of his.

“You’d never mean to go back home?” he questions, removing her first rook.

“It’s what the people like us do, is it not?” Brienne asks, her voice almost not audible as she moves her knight across the checkerboard. “Even if that means to never see one’s homeland again. It’s the price you pay for service.”

“Well, you didn’t swear yourself to Sansa like you swore yourself to Renly or even Catelyn,” Jaime argues, to which she can’t help but frown at him. “Which is to say?”

“That you don’t necessarily owe them the same vow you made to Renly,” Jaime says, removing another pawn of hers. “There are different vows. And different ways of fulfilling them. That’s all I am trying to say.”

“My vow was to keep them safe, either one of them. I wanted to protect Renly. I wanted to protect Lady Catelyn. I want to protect Lady Sansa now. And I will do whatever it takes to keep that promise. If that means living as though I was part of a Kingsguard or Queensguard despite the fact that I am not… then that is so. I will do whatever it takes,” Brienne says, moving her king across the checkboard. “You think that foolish.”

“It is,” he replies simply, moving his queen.

“And what makes you think that?” she asks.

“Because _I_ am a fool, and I made _just_ those decisions, if for another reason, at another time,” Jaime tells her, not looking her in the eye. “See where I am now?”

“You are back home.”

“This is _not_ home,” Jaime argues, much to Brienne’s surprise.

While she understood that Jaime felt a bit anxious about return, Brienne thought that once he was welcomed back to this place, back into his family’s embrace, particularly of the one woman he can’t choose to love, he would forget about his anxiety in favor of the feeling of familiarity.

“It’s never been home. I _know_ this place, alright. I tried to protect its people the best I could, under Aerys. I try my best even now, for all it’s worth in the face of the shit I have done otherwise that didn't help the realm at all… that, and in face of the limb I lost…,” he says, moving one of his pawns. “But… I’ve never felt at home here. Likely never will. Aerys shadow hides in every corner.”

“But your family is here.”

“Yes, my family is here, and that’s the one thing that makes a difference. The rest? It is duty, no more. I bear this place no affection. Even after years of having lived here, I never accustomed to the climate. It isn’t home. It isn’t the Rock. I know that. It’s the decision I made, and I have to live with it… but… it isn’t home, no way around it. Returning here only ever assured me of that circumstance. I remain a stranger around here, though that is perhaps a small fortune, considering that I don’t want to be here if not for my kin having its place right at the Red Keep.”

Brienne bites her lower lip. _His kin and his lover, who happens to be both._

“Well, it’s only just for life, right?” Jaime laughs drily, bitterly, looking at her sadly as he moves his knight across the checkerboard. “But you don’t have to repeat my foolish mistakes. Or would you really want to end up like the Kingslayer?”

“To some people, that is what I am anyways,” Brienne says, moving her rook. “And that is all I am ever going to be to them.”

“One advice, if you don’t mind?”

Brienne rolls her wrist at him, feeling the wristband twirl around her arm.

“Don’t concern yourself with the opinion of the sheep. That is one of the few good advices my Father likely ever gave,” Jaime says. “ _You_ know it's not true. That's all that should matter to you.”

“Did it make it more bearable for you?” Brienne asks quietly.

Jaime looks at her for a long moment, seemingly surprised that she seems to know him in that way now.

“… A little,” he admits after a long moment.

“That much?” she snorts.

“I guess it’s even a bit of an overstatement. It just makes you feel less like shit.”

“I will bear that in mind,” Brienne says, looking back at the checkerboard. “Check.”

Jaime wrinkles his nose. “I think I let myself be a little too distracted.”

“Or maybe it’s just the wine.”

“Yes, let’s better blame the wine… ha, wait, well, seems like I can prevent that avalanche after all,” Jaime says, moving his bishop between his king and her rook. “I’d say crisis averted. Not with a flower, but we always tend to throw the Gods overboard when they abandon us first, which they do achingly often.”

Brienne takes a sip of the wine.

“Well, if you stay in King’s Landing after all, to protect young Lady Sansa, we, at least, have someone to spend the nights with to play chess, huh?” he chuckles softly, before lifting his cup to his lips the same way.

“You’d sincerely consider that?” she huffs.

_That is an exception, is it not? An act of kindness for a woman he knows is having a hard time accustoming to a new place?_

“Not much harm is done if we were to do just that, I believe. I am a knight of the Kingsguard, after all. Lord Commander now, even. Fancy promotion I got without ever being around to live up to it. What could anyone do to object?” Jaime snorts, eyes fixed on the checkerboard.

“You wouldn’t think that someone would have disagreements with that? Including the Queen Regent?” Brienne can’t help but ask, only to almost bite on her tongue.

_I shouldn’t have said that._

“So long you don’t always throw it at her face that you served Cat and want to get Sansa out of here, I think you should be fine… for now anyway,” Jaime says, seemingly not taking offense. “Oh, I’d say that you are at check now, wench.”

Brienne looks back down on the checkerboard, blinking once, twice. “Talk about trying to create a distraction.”

“My brother says that this is the smartest way of going about it, and he should know. He is the thinker of the family. That, and the drinker. Though I suppose my sister may be able to beat him in that game.”

Brienne moves her king so that he is no longer under direct attack. “Your turn.”

“All I am trying to say is that… I keep an eye on things, no worries,” Jaime says, moving his bishop to remove one of her remaining pawns.

His mouth opens to add something, but then he closes it again. “Your turn.”

And Brienne can’t help but wonder what he wanted to say.

Because for a moment, however foolish it may be, she thought he meant to say that she needn’t worry because he’d protect her, but Brienne throws the idea away as far as her mind allows her to.

Instead, she moves the chess pieces again. “Check.”

“Well, shit,” Jaime mutters as he takes a good look at the board. “It appears you caught me, wench.”

Brienne says nothing at that.

She knows she has him under Zugzwang now, but only just on the checkerboard.

Because he seems to have her under Zugzwang far more often than he’d realize.

And in a strange way, that is perhaps something that unites them once more. They are bound to move in certain ways because of circumstances limiting their movements.

They are both under Zugzwang.

Jaime makes his chess figure move the only way he has left, which puts his king at checkmate. In the movement, the black chess piece falls out of his hand and rolls off the checkerboard, into a stain of wine that formed underneath Jaime’s cup.

“The King is dead,” Jaime says with a frown as he picks the figure up to twist between his fingers, taking a good look at it. “See? I am shit for a Lord Commander, too! Yet another King I got killed!”

“Maybe he just died of old age,” Brienne says. He laughs at that.

Brienne can’t remember the last time someone laughed so often at what she said.

She is far more used to people telling her that she shouldn’t try to make those comments, because she is too dull for it.

“Or maybe your queen viciously murdered him. Poisoned him,” Jaime chuckles, pointing at the cup. “There, with wine.”

“He rolled over before he took a dip in the wine,” Brienne argues, going along, going with the ease, finding herself chasing it.

Because it is strangely familiar in a place that is anything but familiar.

“True again. Well, no matter what killed him, he is dead now. Pity.”

“Well, the good thing is,” Brienne says, taking the king from his grasp to put back on his original position. “In chess, the King can be brought back to life as he pleases.”

And how much she wished that were so in real life, too.

“Ha, long live the King!” Jaime laughs. “So, am I correct that the lady wants to play once more?”

“It wouldn’t be fair after just one round,” Brienne argues uncertainly, not wanting to force herself upon him.

“True again. Well, if nothing works, I will just have to make you dead drunk,” Jaime snickers.

“You can try,” Brienne says, rearranging the chess pieces again.

“Is that a challenge?”

“No. It’s a game of chess,” Brienne tells him. “No more, no less. You start.”

Jaime smirks before moving the first pawn.

The rest turns to more of a blur to Brienne as they slip into easy conversations, mingled with the tart aftertaste of the wine, fussing about who outsmarts the other on the checkerboard.

Jaime tells her about how he was knighted, Brienne tells him about how she wanted to be knighted after she beat the first boy after completing her first level of training. 

Brienne tells him about the melee at Bitterbridge, Jaime tells her about his first melee as a young knight, not yet wearing the White Cloak.

Stories slip out, are brought into the world of this warmly lit room.

Stories are being told that are private, and she finds herself absorbing them as much as she finds in her a willingness, if not a drive, to share some, too.

To create something between them that wasn’t there.

Something familiar.

To have him familiar with her, her past, who she is.

The girl she’d normally be only ever in the safety of the woods.

And for a moment, Brienne doesn’t feel like a stranger, but as though she was right at this place, as though it was hers to occupy, as though Jaime wanted her to be in that space, to take it up, and claim it hers.

She only vaguely registers that their last game ends in a draw.

_A truce._

Her eyes drift close before she can help it and Brienne feels her cheek coming to rest on the fabric of the chaise lounge. Her unbound hand comes to enclose the one with the wristband, her fingers loosely tangling around the thin stripe of grass.

She dreams of the meadows of Tarth, her heart feeling heavy with desire for that place, her place to be herself, to be… _well, alone_ … But be herself while being alone.

However, the deeper she drifts, the more the blue fades from her eyes, and suddenly, all Brienne sees is white, stretching so far that skies keep fading and grounds keep disappearing into nothingness. There is nothing around her except for white. And for a moment, Brienne feels the same kind of lack of familiarity within this strange place, the same kind of loneliness, until something presses against her hand, though she cannot see it in the white engulfing her.

But it is warm and holds on tight, that much she can tell.

And all of a sudden, Brienne doesn’t feel as lonely anymore as she goes on, the press against her hand that could be fingers, keeps up with her with every labored step, brushing against her wristband every once in a while, making it chime like a small bell.

Never letting go.

Not leaving her alone.

Even in a strange land made of white.

Brienne awakes to the first beams of sunlight breaking through the clouds.

Her head is still reeling from the wine as she straightens up a bit, the taste heavy on her tongue.

She catches sight of Jaime slouched over in his chair, lying at an odd angle that is surely anything but comfortable. Nonetheless, Jaime is snoring soundly as though he was lying in his bed.

Brienne leans on her forearm, only now taking note of a thin blanket pooling at her waist, which has her wondering when she picked that up last night, though she can’t recall when she would have done that. Jaime would have made fun of her for feeling cold, no doubt.

_So did he…?_

Brienne shakes her head as she gets up as silently as possible, careful not to knock anything over as she makes for the portal. The young woman opens the heavy wooden door with as little noise as she can, stealing one last glance at Jaime’s sleeping form before she closes it.

Glad to find the hallway empty, Brienne starts to make her way back to her chamber, noting to herself that she feels much more confident in her steps than she did last night.

Brienne stops at one point to glance out the big window, where the sun starts to peek over the rooftops.

A small smile creeps up her lips as she takes a moment to linger.

As it appears, you have to chase familiarity in the places that are strange to you.

Jaime finds it in his family.

And Brienne? For as long as she is here, she will have to find her own ways of finding something familiar, of not being lonely.

And the vastness of the night’s sky as well as the sunrise painting all of King’s Landing in countless shades of colors may manage to make her feeling estranged seem much smaller by comparison.

Brienne starts to walk again, tearing her gaze back once.

Or perhaps the one way to battle loneliness is to stop being alone.

To cross the threshold.

To walk inside.

And take up space.

Claim it.

And maybe, if granted, keep it, too.

Brienne starts walking again, shaking her head with a smile.

And even if not, a round of chess can leave your loneliness at checkmate, too. 


	4. Chamber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the royal wedding of Joffrey Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell coming to a tragic ending, Brienne has to figure out her next steps, with Sansa on the run and strange noises coming out of Jaime's chamber. And that even though her mind returns to the events of the wedding over and over. 
> 
> Jaime fights his own demons, not knowing how to move on, to move ahead, as his world keeps shattering, but then a door opens and someone comes inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for sticking around despite horrible update times. 
> 
> As I said in some other Author's Notes in other fanfics as well, life is kind of hell for me right now after a tragedy in the family, which means that my mind is not always working the way I want it to. I hope that I will somehow find my way back to all of my WIPs, especially now that JBO launched "Finish it February" to help us fanfic auhors to finally finish or post a new chapter to our dusty WIPs waiting for an update. 
> 
> Well, as to the chapter, I am still sticking to more or less "deleted scenes" without making changes to the canon per se, though I may change more of the original story as this fanfic progresses, I may warn you so right now. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. 
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

 

It seems still by far too surreal to Brienne as she makes her way down the corridors of the Red Keep, which make whistling sounds, unoccupied, empty, hollow, carved out with a knife. The world grew very still after it was such a frenzy, an uproar that swept across the crowd like a gigantic wave, setting into motion what was only ever simmering beneath the surface, a feast that ended a King’s reign at once.

Joffrey Baratheon, killed at his own wedding.

Poisoned.

Dead.

The sight of the lad as he choked, turned purple, clawing at his neck in the vain hope to somehow draw a living breath, was a shocking sigh, if not frightening, even. Brienne cannot say that she bore tender feelings towards the King, far from it. The atrocities he committed, or rather had others commit for him, were gruesome, cruel, and uncounted for. However, seeing life painfully torn out of a person whose body has not yet fully matured, it was nonetheless a horror Brienne didn’t know existed inside her until she found herself shaking as she watched the boy struggling for air, and losing.

At some point Brienne starts to question whether she and Jaime challenged the Gods with their game of chess, got too close to destiny’s call as they jokingly put down kings and brought them back to life, believing it to be all but a simple game, and not in the least a strange sort of foreboding, though she puts the thought as far away as she can.

They do not bear that power, do they?

It was all a strange sort of rush, following the King’s last breath. A mother weeping, her cries echoing to every corner of the Red Keep. A father standing by soundlessly, watching on, unable to tear his eyes off of the boy over with blood and wine, yet well aware that the grief he felt was not the one he was allowed to display in public. An uncle dragged to the Black Cells, accused of the murder. Lady Sansa still not to be found. Brienne wanted to set out after Lady Catelyn’s daughter at once when news reached her that Lady Sansa had disappeared from the wedding, having Cersei convinced that she and Tyrion conspired for the kingslaying. However, the guards came before Brienne could even make an attempt to slip into her chamber, gather the sword she had been given once they came from Harrenhal, and then slip out of the Red Keep to pursue the daughter of the lady Brienne made a solemn vow to. The guards said that no one is to leave the castle – upon the Lord Commander’s order.

And that was what inevitably brought Brienne to a pause even though her body wanted to keep rushing, wanted to keep pushing forward. Brienne stuck to the orders, even though the urge was strong within her to handle things her own way, to chase Sansa before she can slip away too far, to Gods know where.

Yet, she stayed, because the guard assured her that _Jaime_ had given the order. And before she hasn’t spoken to him, Brienne cannot simply move as she pleases. He will have a reason why, she is most certain of that. After all, Sansa’s safety is as much her vow to keep as his.

Who else is she supposed to trust if not him?

At this point, Jaime’s opinion is the only one that seems to matter in all this mess, at least to Brienne. He is the one person she believes in, now that she is stuck in a city in an uproar, where one lady or lord wants the death of another, where far too many people are eyeing the Iron Throne as a strange sort of treasure, even though Brienne is more and more convinced that this chair comes with far more burdens than with merits.

She walks down the corridors she passed through some many times these past few nights, stealing away to some nightly rounds of chess with Jaime, some strolls in the gardens in the late afternoon, and some occasional drinking that should seem far too much unlike her.

However, where comfort started to spread along with the light of the torches there is now a feeling of dread in Brienne that makes her feel out of breath without any sort of exercise. Whatever high spirit she may have had the previous nights she spent in Jaime’s company, any feeling of joy Jaime may have gotten out of their sleeplessness… it’s gone now, she is certain of that.

Brienne stops in her tracks at the sound of metal hitting stone. She turns her head.

_That came out of Ser Jaime’s chamber._

She bites her lower lip, contemplating. While Brienne wants to see him to talk about Lady Sansa, she is… _afraid_ , to tell the truth, if only to herself, because she wouldn’t want anyone to know that there even is such a thing in her. And yet she is afraid of Jaime’s reaction – and afraid of her own. While it may seem small by comparison to what happened today, his sister saw something in Brienne that no one else did.

And Brienne lacked the words to say “no.”

She lacked the words to deny.

Lacked the words to come up with an excuse, a passable lie.

She lacked the voice to speak with.

She lacked the voice to make it something else.

Brienne could only ever stare instead of saying the “no” that should have freed her of the accusation the Queen Mother held against her in the privacy of that moment.

Because there seemed to be no “no” when something inside her wanted to shout the opposite, but remained sealed behind pursed lips, hidden away somewhere deep inside to where no one can reach, where no one can touch, right next to the fears she won’t allow to see the light of day.

_But what if Jaime will see it, even in his grief? What if he sees through me at once? What if…_

The sound of another item made of metal crashing to the ground startles her enough to pull Brienne back to the wooden door and the desolate hallway which seems to lead everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Brienne’s feet move before her mind can, her arm spreads out to knock on the door before she can bother to think it through.

Whatever is going on inside stops at the sound of her knocking on the door.

“Ser Jaime?” Brienne asks, coughing lightly when her voice comes out rather croaked.

She can hear the man motion closer to the door, his feet barely moving over the ground, as though he was dragging himself in the same fashion that he did when he was haunted by fever and exhaustion after Locke and his men cut off his hand and brought them to Harrenhal, no matter how often he fell and had to get back up again.

“I’d rather be alone right at this moment,” Jaime says, his voice flat, without any highs or lows, though Brienne can hear the tension even through the wooden door.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

If Brienne is not mistaken, he laughs at that, a hollow sort of laugh that ebbs into a cough and a soundless whimper.

“As I said, it’s for the best if you left me alone now, Brienne. I am not… in a very _sociable_ mood right at this moment, you might be able to imagine. I fear I would not be good company.”

“I wanted to talk to you…,” Brienne means to say, but Jaime cuts her off before she can finish the sentence, “Is it possible to leave it until later? I would rather… I just need to be alone for now.”

Brienne wants to say that he may do as he pleases. She wants to turn around and leave, to let Jaime go about his grief in the ways he sees fit, but her feet remain by the door, her mind remains focused on the man behind the wooden barrier separating them. She cannot leave, even though her mind is screaming at her to go, that she should not be here, that this is not her place to be.

And yet, she stays.

“I’d like to talk to you… because of _you_ ,” Brienne says, almost chewing on the words. She is no good at any of this. “If you need… someone to talk to, that is.”

She shakes her head, frustrated with herself for not finding the right words, feeling as clumsy in her speech as she feels in her walk some many times, as clumsy as she felt after that one dance when she was a child and she realized that the boys complimenting her on her grace were actually just making fun of “Brienne the Beauty.”

_But how do you offer comfort when you are not even used to receiving it?_

“As I said, I am not in a sociable mood. I wouldn’t want to say something nasty, because I fear I will,” Jaime says, as a warning, trying to chase her away, trying to keep her away from him and what she would see if the door between them stood open.

“When has that ever stopped you?” Brienne blurts out, surprising herself with the sarcastic tone escaping her lips. Her first impulse is to apologize at once, but then she can hear a small laughter from the other side that does not sound like the first one. Sad, yes, but more amused than pained.

“It stops me now,” Jaime answers once the laughter died down again.

“You don’t have to for my sake,” she insists.

“Brienne. Please. I am sick of fighting. Let us call it a truce, if only for tonight.”

 _Then_ _trust_ _me_ , she wants to say, but does not. _Trust me so that we can have a truce, but there is no truce with a door right between us._

“I don’t mean to fight, Ser,” Brienne says instead.

“I know… I know! It’s just that I know you and you know me. We always end up fighting over nonsense and… now is not the time. I cannot… I simply cannot,” he answers.

“I can promise a truce,” Brienne offers, not even knowing why she keeps trying. Normally, she would have retreated to her chamber by now, she would have stepped away, would have granted him silence to let his grief ring as far as it can in a palace that is not allowed to carry the truth through the hallways that this is a father’s grief, and not just that of an uncle, of a Lord Commander.

“Brienne, please,” Jaime begs this time, truly begs.

She feels her wrist tighten around the other which she has folded in her back until she can feel the soft prickle that comes with having the blood flow cut off.

Brienne wants to stay as much as she wants to run, run far, far away, all the while asking herself how she comes to think that she can be of any assistance, can be of any help, can make some kind of difference, when it should be clear to Brienne that she is at the margins of his life, and that it is other people who play the most important role in it.

By what right does the moon try to outshine the sun?

It is the fraction of a moment that decides, no conscious decision, no promise, no resistance, no more than a leap forward, a hand reaching out and not withdrawing at the last second.

Brienne opens the door, surprised to find it unlocked, and apparently, Jaime is equally irritated as he sees her move inside, because neither one expected her to gather the confidence to walk in despite his insistence to stay out.

She takes in her surroundings. Cups of wine are spread on the ground, the red liquid pooling beneath the gold, sinking into the stone. The flagon which held drink for them a couple of nights now lies on the ground, shattered to a million pieces, never to be repaired.

“I suppose I should have seen about locking the door,” Jaime huffs, blinking at her.

Brienne looks at him, studies his features, which are familiar to her, but seem totally strange now. Jaime is still in armor, and if she is not mistaken, she can spot a few speckles of blood from the short moment he held Joffrey before Cersei took his place, or perhaps just dried droplets of wine, she is not sure.

But in the end, it likely does not make a difference, because the stain that doesn’t wash is the one now in his mind, his heart.

“You really should better leave again,” he sighs, sounding tired, exhausted, drained.

“Why aren’t you with your family?” Brienne asks, unable to move any further ahead, her feet stubbornly staying on the ground, leaving distance between them despite the fact that the wooden door is no longer keeping them apart.

“I needed some time for myself… and Cersei didn’t want to see me anyway,” Jaime explains, chewing on his lower lip.

His sister told him to stay away, she yelled at him to leave, and so Jaime did, muttering apologies Cersei didn’t want to hear, couldn’t hear, because all his sister heard were the screams of grief, of fury, for her son lost and for the person who has done it, which Cersei assumes to be their brother, something that Jaime is by no means so sure about.

“Why is that?” Brienne asks quietly.

_After all, she and Jaime are…_

He shrugs. “Because I failed to protect the boy. And of that I am certain… she won’t forgive me for that. My sister is not good at that, never was…”

“There is nothing you could have done,” Brienne argues, her voice quiet and even.

“Precisely. I told you: I am shit for a Lord Commander.”

_Shit for a father. Shit for everything._

Brienne licks her lips, pondering her words. “I just mean to say that you couldn’t help it that it happened. No one could have.”

No one saw it coming, safe for the person who planned the murder.

“How did you say by the balcony as we watched Sansa? That doesn’t release you from a vow,” Jaime says through gritted teeth, his voice no more bitterness and a grief cutting deeper than any knife ever could.

“I didn’t mean to…,” Brienne mutters, but Jaime is quick enough to cut her off, “See? Now I am cursing at you. You should leave before I drive you away completely, Brienne. I can promise you that we will think of something about Sansa, but…”

“If you say I should wait, I will,” Brienne replies resolutely.

Jaime looks at her, stunned.

It was not long ago that she asked him why she should care whether he died or not.

It was not long ago that they tried to kill one another.

It was not long ago that she had to be weary of every of his moves, trying to slip away, slit her throat, only just to come back home.

And yet, it feels as though an eternity has passed since, considering how it seems almost given now that there is a trust where there used to be nothing but suspicion and a wasteland of ignorance.

“Maybe you want to take off the armor?” Brienne goes on to suggest, nodding down the length of his body. Jaime blinks, following her gaze, only now taking in the shining gold, the heavy metal making him immobile, numb.

“… I didn’t even realize that I still wore it,” he mutters, still blinking at the gold and white of his cloak. He felt so heavy anyway that the armor hardly seemed to make a difference.

“Maybe taking it off will help you get some rest,” Brienne tells him, swallowing thickly.

“What would I need _rest_ for? It’s not like I actually _did_ anything, managed to run down the culprit, or carry the lad to Maester Pycelle for an antidote,” Jaime snaps, wrestling with those emotions he knows should not be his, aren’t his, have never been, because he didn’t earn them, isn’t granted them.

_And yet…_

“I should not be grieving. I have no rights to it, I know. The child was a monster that someone wanted to see dead the same way people slew the dragons. He was Cersei’s first, and she loved him fiercer than any other… I should not be grieving for a son I barely fathered. I shouldn’t be grieving for a son I never took care of. Never held in my arms. For the one I failed to protect,” Jaime says through gritted teeth, keeping his gaze averted.

Brienne makes one step closer, breathing out through pursed lips, trying to order her thoughts, but fails miserably, because there is just chaos in her head.

“I shouldn’t be grieving Renly, still,” Brienne blurts out saying, which seems to catch Jaime’s interest, as he pulls his eyes to hers at last. “He didn’t love me, yet, I grieved him for the love I bore him. It didn’t matter that he didn’t love me the same way… or at all. The heart doesn’t make that difference. It doesn’t care whether we are justified to feel that way. We just… we do.”

Jaime looks at her for a long moment, studies her, his eyes fixed on hers, as though they were the only thing keeping him afloat in the sea threatening to bury him.

“I’d rather not feel anything at all,” he admits, shaking his head. “I should be thinking about what do next. I should be taking actions instead of pacing in my chamber. I need to see about Tyrion. I need to see about Sansa. And Cersei… I have things to do, but I can only ever watch things breaking apart right at this moment.”

Jaime gestures at the shards on the ground, the spilled wine, the cups now motionless on the ground.

His entire world keeps breaking apart and Jaime doesn’t even know where to begin to try to fix this.

How do you fix something so entirely broken?

How do you put something back together when you yourself are in pieces?

“And that is alright,” Brienne tells him.

“Why would it be alright, you tell me? _Nothing_ about this is alright,” Jaime argues.

Everything is out of order.

_Chaos. This is chaos. Chaos. Chaos. Chaos._

“No, nothing is alright, that’s true,” she agrees, barely moving her lips apart as she speaks.

He sighs. “You should just leave, Brienne.”

_Just leave me in chaos, in the pieces of my own wrongdoings._

“No,” she answers, surprising both of them with the force with which she says that short yet powerful word.

“Will you oppose me on anything I ever ask of you?” Jaime huffs.

“I don’t mean to oppose you,” Brienne assures him.

Jaime feels his phantom hand twitching. “Then what do you mean to achieve?”

“Nothing,” she answers.

“Woman, start talking clearly,” he demands.

“I just…,” Brienne mutters.

“You just _what_?” He turns around abruptly. “As I said, you should just leave. I don’t want to be at odds with you. “

Jaime can’t have her hate him now, too. He is sure that Cersei will hate him for it, even if she may not say it, but Jaime knows it, deep down he does. He failed to protect Joffrey. If he had left it to another man to protect him, then maybe…

He shakes his head.

Jaime cannot afford to lose another link in his life, even if it’s just a fragile bond built over a strenuous journey and a lack of sleep that keeps them together when everything else seems to pull them apart by the limbs.

He can’t afford to lose her now, too.

“I understand it that you want to curse, have to, even. It’s fine to me. I can take it,” Brienne assures him, not really sure whether that is something she should be offering, but then again, she likely should have stayed out that door from the very beginning. Yet, here she is, trying to provide that which she doesn’t know too well herself.

“But I don’t _want_ you to take it. I just… I have to calm down. I have to…,” Jaime mutters, trying to calm himself, trying to contain all of that anger, all of that frustration, sadness and mourning that shouldn’t be his, trying to keep it behind his walls, but his arms won’t stop shaking, the fingers of his one hand won’t stop twitching.

Jaime is surprised when she takes a hold of his shoulder plate and wordlessly searches for the leather strap that keeps it attached to the rest of the armor.

“Wench,” the man sighs, though Jaime doesn’t know if he is begging or if he is demanding. The one thing he knows is that he can’t breathe, and that the armor prevents him from it. The gold is heavy on his mind, his soul. It drags him down, deeper and deeper and deeper.

Brienne’s fingers work routinely, knowing where to pull, where to tug, having done and undone the protective shield the likes of them keep around themselves countless times by now, not just to dodge the blows of swords and battleaxes, but also to somehow lessen the impact of hits that do not bear the shape, do not hold any weight, and yet, knock you right off your feet.

At last, the breastplate opens and Jaime can feel his lungs suck in as much air as they can. Brienne pulls the armor off, the small metal plates chinking and singing the songs of war, of loss and regret, of a life ended.

Jaime watches as she takes the armor and puts it on the stand, careful where he just wants to toss, ordered where he just wants to leave chaos in his wake, if only to feel a little more of himself out in the world, calmness in the storm raging inside him.

His feet move on their own, maneuvering over to the bed to fall upon it with a thud. He wants to bury his head in his hands, but when he almost pokes himself in the eye with the golden hand, he lets out a growl of frustration. His fingers work on it fast and moments later, the golden hand flies across the room, taking up a corner in the shadows.

 _Leave it there_ , Jaime thinks to himself. _It’s useless anyway. Just like me._

Brienne watches all of this wordlessly, and Jaime cannot fathom just _why_ she wouldn’t leave, why she’d stay to look at this useless man who doesn’t even pass for a bodyguard anymore. Brienne should long since be out the door. No one wants to take up with a madman who feels grief over a son he never took care of, a son who died never knowing who his actual father was, the product of a forbidden union between brother and sister. No one wants to take up with a man who broke at what should be a feather’s weight to him.

_No one wants to take up with the likes of me._

He should be strong now. He should take action now, but Jaime is just numb. He is numb because he couldn’t protect Joffrey. At a wedding. He should have been able to prevent this.

He should have stopped it.

He should have foreseen it.

_I should have seen it coming. I should have done something. I did something about Aerys before it was too late. Why not this time? Or is it truly that I will forever only undo Kings and Queens instead of serving their protection?_

And what kind of a man of the Kingsguard does that make him? Just how much more can one soil the White?

Jaime is stunned when Brienne starts moving again, his eyes chasing her when his entire world seems out of focus, finding steadiness only in her rhythmic step, careful but determined, as she walks up to the corner cast in shadows, already meaning to bend down to retrieve the hand he tossed.

“Leave it. I will pick it up later.”

_Or maybe I should leave it. It’s not like it’s going to make any difference whether I keep it on or not. My hand is gone, and with that apparently any ability to protect the people I vowed to serve._

But Brienne bends down anyway, picks it up, puts it on the small table right next to the chess game they didn’t finish last night, which only adds to Jaime’s irritation, as though it all scratched his skin, while he knows that there are no marks. That would mean that he would have fought a fight instead of just standing by as Joffrey took his last breath. And now, he will probably drive Brienne away, too. And then he is going to be alone all over.

“Wench, leave it now,” Jaime almost shouts when Brienne goes on to pick up the cups he threw off the table in a fury.

_Just leave me in my chaos._

_Just leave me in my pain._

_Leave me in the shatters I made myself – or else you will cut yourself on the sharp edges._

She lets out a shaky breath, blowing air out through her nostrils, but then goes on to collect the pieces after all.

“Brienne,” Jaime grounds out.

“It’s almost done now anyway,” she argues, her voice flat, not giving away anything, not frightened, not irritated, not even angry.

_Why isn’t she angry? Why doesn’t she leave? Normally, it takes far less to have her fuming at me – and storming out of the chamber._

And yet, she stays.

“Just when will you listen to only just a single word I say?” Jaime sighs, not even knowing why he picks the fight. He has lost enough people for a day.

“When you are being more reasonable again,” Brienne replies, and normally, Jaime would have laughed at the comment, but he can’t, he simply can’t.

“You should leave,” Jaime insists, his voice almost a whisper this time, tired of the fighting, sick of it all over, tired of himself and his inability to keep the people close and protected he would want to know safe, sick and tired of failing, of losing.

“Perhaps I should,” Brienne replies as she straightens back up, her wrists tightly enclosed in her back.

She really better should. Jaime doesn’t want her around, he makes that clear, but whenever Brienne wants to make the attempt to steal out the door, she finds her feet unmoving, her muscles contracting the way she only ever witnessed it when she trained too hard with sword and shield and her body would move no more, too exhausted, caught up in itself to go forward, leaving her with no other option but to linger.

Jaime turns his head lightly to look in her direction, his glance almost beckoning for answers. “Then why don’t you?”

“Because I choose not to,” Brienne replies.

_We don’t get to choose…_

“But _why_?” Jaime keeps questioning, because he does not understand, cannot.

Brienne rolls her broad shoulders. “Do I need a reason?”

“Of course you do. There ought to be a reason. Reasons determine our actions,” Jaime sighs.

He had a reason to slay Aerys. He had a reason to join the Kingsguard. Had a reason to shout out to Locke. He had a reason to jump into the bear pit. Jaime always had a reason, sometimes for bad, but sometimes also for good. However, there was always something that drove him, some explanation, some underlying purpose.

Thus, there has to be a reason for Brienne, too. And for once, it can’t be honor, can’t be the knightly quest she keeps pursuing without relent. So what is it?

_What is it?_

“Suffice to say that there is one, but that I rather keep it to myself,” Brienne says, averting her gaze, chewing on her lower lip.

“You are mad,” Jaime huffs.

What reason could be so unspeakable that she could not shout it out right at this moment? The honorable Maid of Tarth has nothing to hide, does she? Even this here may come to serve the virtues of a knight, to be there for those in need, even if undeserving of the service.

She shrugs. “Perhaps.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand you,” Jaime sighs.

In fact, he rarely does, but right at this moment, Brienne is about as mysterious to him as she is physical, in this chamber.

“I hardly ever understand you either. So that only seems fair,” Brienne tells him.

She moves over to the bed, and pulls over one of the chairs to sit on it, facing him.

“Is there something you’d want to say?” Brienne goes on to ask, which has Jaime blinking at her incredulously. “What?”    

“If you think you can’t say it to someone else, you can say it to me. It’s not going to leave this room,” Brienne answers, not knowing what to do with her hands until she folds them tightly in her lap.

Her vow to Renly was also to keep his secrets, even if for a short while only. And if the Queen Mother had the rights of it, Brienne chooses the people she serves. Thus, it may be that she can extend that service to Jaime, too, however small or useless it may actually be.

Because he seems to need it.

Or at least that is what she sees swimming up in his eyes whenever Brienne dares to meet his pained gaze.

“Do you want me to confess my sins?” Jaime huffs, trying to joke, though neither one is laughing. “I thought we already had that in Harrenhal’s baths. Though there, we had far less clothing on.”

“No. I don’t want you to confess anything. That is business you have with the Gods, not me,” Brienne answers.

“Then why would you want to hear what I have on my wicked mind?”

“It may be not about what I want to hear, but what you may need to say.”

“Why do you bother?”

_Why do you care?_

“I…”

Jaime looks at her, trying to find the answer before her mouth can speak it, tries to find it in the blue orbs of her eyes, but Brienne keeps her gaze stubbornly averted this time, pondering her reply.

“Not only Lannisters are the ones who pay their debts,” she goes on to say, barely moving her lips apart as she speaks, which has Jaime frown at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I owe you a debt,” Brienne replies.

“Wench, we had that already,” Jaime argues, rolling his eyes. “Stop thinking that you owe me much of anything for what happened with the Brave Companions.”

“It’s something else.”

“And what would that be?” Jaime asks.

“I don’t owe you that answer,” Brienne tells him, shaking her head.

“Stubborn till the bitter end,” Jaime snorts. “You just love driving me insane, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then what do you want to hear? What do you want me to say?” Jaime asks, his eyes stinging with unshed tears all of a sudden. “I lost. I can’t fix anything anymore. Joffrey is dead and I did not prevent it. He is dead and there is no way for me to fix that ever again, to take that back… The lad’s been terrible and never should have gotten the crown, and yet…”

Jaime stops, the fingers of his left hand clenching and unclenching, his ghost hand wanting to do the same, but unable to, because it’s still rotting somewhere around Harrenhal.

“And yet?” Brienne repeats when he won’t go on.

“I feel grief even though it isn’t my privilege. I didn’t ever hold him. I did nothing to raise him. I only ever watched the three children from afar, let my sister handle it all, and spoil that one more than was ever good for him… and that even though they are…,” Jaime mutters, running his left hand over his face.

Even now he can’t admit it, though Brienne very well knows most of it.

“I didn’t do enough. I wasn’t enough. If I ever was… And now those children… what if they are meant to pay the price for our sins? For my sins? What if this was only just the beginning?” Jaime says, voice shaking.

“Then you will have to find a way to keep that from happening,” Brienne tells him simply, not knowing what else to tell him, what else to do. It is only then that she notices that her fingers keep twisting the grass band around her wrist, a gesture that grew to be a small comfort, a bit of reassurance in a time that deprives her of sleep, of rest, of nearly everything as of late.

“Right at this moment I don’t think I am capable of much of anything,” Jaime sighs.

_And isn’t that the sad truth in it all?_

“You saved the entire population of King’s Landing from sure demise at the hands of the Mad King. You saved a woman with your hand cut off, no weapon to wield, against a horde of Boltonmen and a bear. I suppose the sad truth is that sometimes we win, but sometimes we also lose. I lost, too. I lost Renly, even though I was sworn to protect him, even though he was right before me when it happened. I wasn’t good enough. That doesn’t stop me from trying again with Lady Sansa. And it won’t stop you from doing the same for the rest of your family.”

That is the one thing Brienne knows without questioning, that is the one thing she can say for certain when otherwise she struggles for the simplest of phrases meant to offer reassurance.

“Whatever will remain of my family, that is. My own brother is charged with Joffrey’s murder. There will be a trial, most likely. My sister won’t stop, now that she is convinced that he did it. And Gods know what becomes of Myrcella in Dorne. Gods know what will become of Tommen, now that he will take the Throne in Joffrey’s stead. Gods know, only the Gods know.”

And they don’t give him any answers.

“Which is why you have to stay here now and see after your family, be with those you swore to protect,” Brienne says, holding on to her bracelet ever the tighter.

“And you will go and try to win with Sansa,” Jaime adds.

She will leave as well.

And Jaime won’t be able to join her, won’t be there to make his name worth a bargain, if Brienne is to run into the likes of Locke ever again.

“Yes,” she agrees hoarsely.

Jaime nods his head slowly, feeling yet another stab in his already aching chest, allowing him only little room to breathe, even without the armor wearing down on him. He lets his gaze wander back to the broken flagon, the shards which are glistening in the dim light of the room like little blades of silver.

That is his world right there.

And it just keeps falling apart.

“I will have arrangements made for your safe departure, if you give me a bit of time,” Jaime then says, chewing on his lower lip, trying to keep up his façade, a sense of direction to have the woman believe that he knows what he is doing, that he has a plan, when truly, he doesn’t, when he just keeps standing still.

“Oh, you don’t have to…,” Brienne means to say, but Jaime interrupts her, “Yes, I have to. I don’t have to tell you that this quest will be dangerous. Because you cannot travel by the King’s request. The King is dead and the new King is not yet crowned. And I would not want to put it forth to my sister that I am sending you off to find the girl she believes to be responsible for Joffrey’s murder as well. That means that the least I can do is to ensure that you have as much protection as I can muster.”

_I can’t afford to lose on this matter now, too. I just can’t. I can’t. I can’t._

Jaime already started making arrangements, though he thought he would have more time, though he had actually prepared it less as a way to shield her on her quest of finding Sansa, daring to hope by the time that she would be safe here in King’s Landing. In fact, Jaime planned it all as a gift. Inside his head, there were brighter colors, a bit of sunshine, even, but as it seems, all is changed now, and that means that his plans he had are all but dust in the end, and he has to see to it that as many particles of that dust remain in his hand.

Because, frankly, that is the only thing he has left now.

“I will trust you to handle that as fast as you can, then,” Brienne concludes.

Jaime offers a weary smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. _Trust_. While he said that word to Brienne in the baths of Harrenhal, meaning them, he didn’t expect Brienne to ever actively return the favor. For that, she seems otherwise far too stubborn to claim the opposite being true.

“I will,” he assures her.

“I know.”

“How do I go on from here?” Jaime finds himself asking before he can think about it. “How did you, after Renly died?”

His mouth opens and closes a few times, already trying to form the words to take it all back, to beg an apology for even asking, but before Jaime can retract, Brienne answers, “I didn’t, really. Something of me stayed in that tent, stayed right with him when Lady Catelyn urged me to come with her. And I suppose I won’t ever get that back… but then I made my vow to Lady Catelyn… and that was when I found a way to move again. It’s as you said… Reasons determine our actions. We need a purpose… and sometimes we have to find a new one, or change the old one.”

“I don’t know how just yet," Jaime admits.

“You don’t have to, not tonight," Brienne tells him.

She doesn't know how to move on yet either, and that even though she didn't lose a "nephew," a son, found her life in shards. Her life was shaken, alright, but of that thing Brienne is certain, none of that compares to a pain Jaime won't allow himself to feel, even though he simply does. Because in the end, it makes no difference who he was to Joffrey, to the children, who they were and are to him. It is what he feels, and Brienne, deep down, wants to believe that those feelings, even if they are meant to stay a secret forever are free to feel, if only to oneself.

_"But you love him."_

Brienne shakes her head. Tonight is not the night for that either.

“Then what do I have to do tonight, if not this?” Jaime asks hoarsely.

Brienne rolls her shoulders, trying to focus on this here right now, on the man before her, this room, the shards, the golden hand hiding in the shadows. “Just make it through the night.”

“I suppose that will be yet another sleepless night for the Kingslayer," he laughs drily.

And the man who now also apparently failed to prevent kingslaying from happening.

“Then that is so," Brienne says quietly, letting her fingers trace her bracelet, to push down the thoughts that loom just at the edge of the band of grass.

_Not tonight. Not tonight. Not tonight._

“And what of you?” Jaime questions, looking at her.

“As I said, I have some debt to repay," Brienne says slowly, finding her breath hitched for a moment there, but she swallows it down, just keeps twisting the threaded grass around her wrist.

Jaime nods his head slowly. “Thank you.”

And he means that far more than his voice can even begin to express, Jaime knows, but that is the best he can do, the best he can say.

_Thank you._

“It’s alright… even if… nothing else is," Brienne tells him.

Jaime leans back on the bed, leaving his hand over his eyes, all the while wondering how it is possible that he starts to feel a bit of comfort due to the mere fact that he can feel Brienne’s presence almost so close that they touch, but only just almost.

And over time, he allows his mind to drift away, from the sharp edges of the shards, the golden hand lingering in the shadows, over to the darkness behind his closed eyelids, until there is nothing but the pitch black of his own mind surrounding him.

And yet, as his mind keeps drifting, keeps sinking deeper into the sweet nothingness of motionlessness, of not knowing yet how to move on, for a moment there, Jaime thinks he can hear something, a faint whisper, a faint song, a distant melody, perhaps the most soothing thing he ever heard.

 

_The Father's face is stern and strong,_   
_he sits and judges right from wrong._   
_He weighs our lives, the short and long,_   
_and loves the little children._

_The Mother gives the gift of life,_   
_and watches over every wife._   
_Her gentle smile ends all strife,_   
_and she loves her little children._

_The Warrior stands before the foe,_   
_protecting us where e'er we go._   
_With sword and shield and spear and bow,_   
_he guards the little children._

_The Crone is very wise and old,_   
_and sees our fates as they unfold._   
_She lifts her lamp of shining gold_   
_to lead the little children._

_The Smith, he labors day and night,_   
_to put the world of men to right._   
_With hammer, plow, and fire bright,_   
_he builds for little children._

_The Maiden dances through the sky,_   
_she lives in every lover's sigh._   
_Her smiles teach the birds to fly,_   
_and gives dreams to little children._

_The Seven Gods who made us all,_  
 _are listening if we should call._  
 _So close your eyes, you shall not fall,_  
 _they see you, little children._  
 _Just close your eyes, you shall_ not fall,  
they see you, little children.

 

And so he falls asleep, not knowing where he goes, only certain of that one thing offering reassurance, offering comfort:

She stays, for tonight.


	5. Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime has one more gift for Brienne before she departs from King's Landing to go search for Sansa.
> 
> And it seems that he is in for one more gift as well.
> 
> However, that doesn't make saying goodbye any easier for either one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, thanks for sticking around, for taking the time to kudo and comment.
> 
> I hope that you are going to enjoy this alternative twist on the goodbye scene in "Oathkeeper" as I keep weaving my narrative through those unseen scenes, to see where that takes me in turn.
> 
> Much love! ♥♥♥

“I have one more gift,” was the last thing Jaime said to Brienne before laughing at her in his typical kind of way that had the young woman, as usual, scowl at him in turn. The Lord Commander then only ever told her that she should come outside once she put on her “new attire” so that he could show her what that last gift was supposed to be. At first, Brienne still thought he was just joking, but as her fingers tightened around the sword, the metal coming in red and blue, she realized that there was no doubt, in fact, that he was serious.

And as Brienne stands there in her chamber right at this moment, fixing the belt with the new sword around her waist after she sent out the young lad Jaime had already assigned to the task to help her into the armor and show her where the straps are, her thoughts keep dancing over what just happened in the White Swords Tower.

_“It’s yours.”_

Brienne can still feel heat rise to her skin at the mere recollection of that sentence, however small, however little it likely means to anyone but herself, but to Brienne, it means the world, if not more, because _he_ said it – and meant it.

This sword is hers now. He gave it to her, the sword his father had forged for him to keep, and yet, here she holds it now, brushes her fingers over it time and time again to remind herself that, yes, this is real, that yes, this just happened, that yes, this is not just one of her dreams plaguing her, taunting her.

And the Gods will be her witness, this is the most formidable blade Brienne has ever laid eyes upon. It is Valyrian steel that shines like a white slate when she holds it in the light. It is adorned with rubies and golden lions that seem to come to life with every move, the lions roaring, the rubies gleaming like droplets of fresh blood in the shine of the white blade’s reflection of freshly fallen snow. It is a blade that would have been deserving of the man once known as the Lion of Lannister before he became known thereafter as the Kingslayer only.

_And he gave it to me anyway, to protect Sansa. He trusts me with his sword. He trusts me with his honor._

It seems hard to believe at some point, no matter how Brienne twists the blade in the light to somehow make her mind bend along the way. She never met anyone quite like Jaime, which seems hardly surprising, but ever the more so she never met someone who put faith in her the way he just did – and did before. Some may rely on her prowess in fight once they have seen her wield a blade, some may count on her being a woman of honor as they take for granted that some of her father’s will have passed over to his one living daughter, but with Jaime, it is simply different.

From the beginning, it has been something else, and now that it seems to come to an end, it remains something twisted even more out of its original shape, whatever it was, as Brienne keeps forgetting who they were when they first met, who they were to one another in the muddy pen that tied their destinies together as one.

_If only for a time…_

It has been different ever since he confessed to her what truly happened with Aerys Targaryen, the Mad King, when Jaime, struck with fever and self-loathing encrusted into his entire being the same way the blood and dirt of their torturous journey had become one with his skin, revealed to Brienne what a whole nation did not know. Something changed when Jaime showed himself to her, bare in all the senses that matter, exposed it all to the dim candlelight and vapor of the bath, to her and her alone, as though her judgment, right at that moment, was the one that mattered.

As though he only ever trusted her, of all people in the Seven Kingdoms and beyond, with what he drowned so deep within himself that Jaime himself seems to get lost when he goes looking for it, dares to expose it to the light of day.

Things have changed. They have changed, not just themselves but also each other, for better or worse, Brienne is not sure. She only knows that something changed, and that for her, that change makes her heart beat faster at the mere mention of his name.

Words still echo inside her head when she lies in back, pondering her quest ahead, only to lead her on the quest that lies behind her, the Bloody Mummers, Jaime, the wedding.

_“But you love him.”_

And now Jaime gave her this most formidable blade because he has faith that she will put it to better use, will put it to use, will make it, will succeed, for the promise they both made to Lady Catelyn, and for the promise Brienne made to Jaime in turn.

_“I will find her. For Lady Catelyn. And for you.”_

_And for you. And for you. And for you. For you. For you. You. You. You…_

Brienne looks down herself, shaking her head, trying to focus on what lies ahead of her because the reality of it is that whatever she may hear echoing inside her ears, coming from the depths of her strong yet fragile heart of steel, it is only that: An echo about to fade. And what lies ahead of her will make it fade even faster as distance makes things ring hollow until they fade away, are swallowed by trees, stones, mountains, snow, and ice.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Brienne brushes her hand over the new chestplate another time. Jaime did _indeed_ get the measurements perfectly right. Even some aspects of her former armor he kept, Brienne realized, the way the metal was decorated, the shape of it, it all reminds her of the one she wore under Renly until the Brave Companions took it from her, but at the same time… it is something completely new, just like she is no longer the woman she was in that muddy pen when they first met. Brienne realized the moment that she stood that it was lighter and allowed for more movement, and that without losing any of its strength, its capacity to shield whatever blow may come her way.

It is blue instead of the reddish gold that she chose to be closer to Renly, if only by cloaking herself in the same metal, the same patterns of the cloak wrapped around her shoulders to put herself just that one bit closer, if only for herself. This armor, however, safe for the Lannister sword around her thick waist, is all about her, is her: It is blue, like the blue waters of the Sapphire Isle. The leather patches even have the sunbursts of house Tarth imprinted into them. It seems as though she herself was stitched into the fabric of the tunic, every leather patch, was hammered into the metal now clutching to her chest, her arms, her sides.

And while Brienne wouldn’t ever consider herself looking more than passable enough in much of anything, she will admit, if only to herself, that she feels more like her than she did in a long, long time.

It seems almost strange how something still so unfamiliar can make her feel familiar with herself, something that Brienne struggled with ever since she was a young girl and was told by her septa that all sign of affection, all compliments for her were only ever to get closer to her father and his wealth. For who would see something in an ugly, mannish girl the likes of her? In a way, those past experiences put Brienne at odds with herself. As a young girl, she lacked awareness for what others would see in her, and how that stood in stark contrast to the adoration she found in her father’s eyes the same way it was at odd with how she saw herself as she twirled in a new dress. She didn’t know that she looked queer in those, that things looked odd on her, out of place, as though they don’t belong.

However, now that she sees herself in the new armor, Brienne can’t help but think that this may be one of the first “attires” now hers where she feels like herself, where exterior matches interior, where the change inside her comes together in the one way that makes sense.

A soft knock on the door pulls Brienne out of her thoughts abruptly, back to the fact that she ought to go, has to leave, as to find Sansa, has to keep her vows… has to leave him.

_This will likely be the last time that we are going to see one another._

The thought does something to Brienne’s body that she cannot really pinpoint, as though something that used to fill her stomach with warmth was suddenly carved out with a spoon and thrown away for her to never get it back.

Because looking at him, the echoes ring so loud that she can barely take it.

“Wench? Are you anywhere near done or are you busy fencing already?” Jaime asks, his tune light as ever, even through the closed door.

“I… I am done,” Brienne replies, blinking. She expected Jaime to wait outside by the city gates already, after all. Yet, the fact that he is now right out the door makes Brienne’s heart beat ever the faster to the point that she can feel it bounce back against the metal of the armor, only to be reflected back into herself, making her heart beat faster, stronger, so much stronger.

_But it is echoes alone. No more than echoes. It is over. It will be over soon. Forever. Easy now. Easy…_

She turns her head when Jaime simply walks inside the chamber, closing the door behind him silently. He looks at her from top of the head to the tip of her shoes once, then twice. Brienne looks at him expectantly, halfway prepared for an insult to fly her way, as that is something she most certainly grew accustomed to over time.

“It seems I got your measurements right after all,” is all he says, looking way too proud of himself for the matter, though Brienne is thankful for the lightness of his voice as it makes her heavy heart, her weary heart, beat a little easier.

“… It appears so. The smith did marvelous work,” Brienne answers.

“Of course you only ever give the smith the credit,” Jaime snorts, his tone amused. “As though I had no part in it whatsoever.”

“… Are you expecting a compliment from me now?” she asks.

“It can’t harm to be nice to me. After all, it’s the last time that you will get opportunity for it, I assume,” Jaime answers, and while the smile keeps tugging at his lips, it is clear to both that there is a pull of dread in that realization as well.

This will be the last time in all likability. Because neither one can even begin to imagine that their paths will cross again once Brienne rides away from the capitol.

_This is the last time that her and me…_

“… I thank you for this. I never had an armor quite that… formidable,” Brienne says, not daring to look Jaime in the eye as she speaks.

“The blue suits you well,” Jaime tells her, at which Brienne’s big blue eyes meet his with such intensity that it almost knocks him right off his feet. “It goes well with your eyes.”

_She does have astonishing eyes._

He watches in almost amusement as a faint shade of red rises to the tall woman’s cheeks as she averts her gaze. No less did he expect from Brienne. She seems rather reluctant to accept compliments of any kind, though Jaime reckons she is not accustomed to receiving them either, so that may be the reason why.

Jaime shakes his head, then, however. Now is not the time for any of this. Now is not the time to get lost in those moments. He had a promise to Brienne and he has to keep it. Jaime saw Cersei talk to Brienne during the wedding, and while he was not yet able to get any information on what the two spoke of, it made the Lord Commander realize anew that Brienne is in danger at the capitol, that she cannot stay whereas he has to.

_She is in danger around me._

“In any case…,” Jaime continues, letting out a light cough to gather himself. “Are you ready to go or do you need more time?”

Though he can’t help but wonder whether he is the one who would need more time, if only to get used to the fact that those late nights of playing chess, talking, simply talking, will end today, once and for all.

“No, I think we should just… go,” Brienne answers, her head still ducked as she speaks, as though she was afraid to take up any more space than she does by nature of her physique.

“As you will, Brienne,” Jaime agrees, nodding his head slowly, before gesturing at her to go ahead. Brienne sucks in a deep breath before walking past him, reminding herself that this was only ever supposed to be a short-lived stay, and won’t ever be her place to be. Jaime closes the door and chuckles when she only ever moves once he starts to walk down the hallways. It is strange to him that while Brienne is one of the most self-reliant women he has ever come across in his entire life, is the strongest female fighter he ever came to meet, is also one of the shyest women Jaime ever made the acquaintance of.

Though that is the thing he learned to see in Brienne, she is a juxtaposition in herself. You can’t quite put her, you can’t quite place her. No, Brienne of Tarth claims the space she wants to inherit or sees as hers. And whether that is on the margins doesn’t seem to concern her much as Brienne lives by the choices she makes.

And that is something Jaime, to this day, finds admirable about her.

_Among many other things that most other people wouldn’t even think about when coming across the Maid of Tarth._

“Well, it seems that I will now have to spend some many sleepless nights, thinking about how you will get yourself into all kinds of trouble now that I am not there to rescue you,” Jaime jokes.

“Rescue me?” she repeats with a grimace.

Jaime huffs. “You and I both know that I was your perhaps not so shining knight without armor when the Brave Companions took us, let us not pretend, wench.”

And while he says it as a joke, Jaime finds himself meaning it more than one would think, because there is not much protection he can offer. The armor will do well to help her move faster and hopefully take some of the blows that will surely come her way on the quest she is to undertake, but Jaime has no illusions about it: A good sword and a sturdy armor do not protect you from everything.

And he is scared of being proven right on the matter yet again as his missing hand seems to pound with pain in agreement.

“If you want to believe that,” she snorts.

“Oh, I don’t just _want to believe_ , wench, in fact I _know_. You are just too stubborn to admit to it. Show me one man who would jump into a bear pit without weapon, armor, or two working hands,” he laughs, not wanting her to know that he means it much more, as Jaime reckons it is for the best to keep the spirits high for now.

Brienne gestures at him. “I seem to have found someone foolish enough for that.”

“ _Foolish?_ ” Jaime chuckles. “Oh, that is unkind of you to say, wench. It was an act of bravery.”

“Bravery can be foolish, too,” Brienne mutters.

Bravery almost got him killed, and as they walk side-by-side, Brienne is painfully reminded of the circumstance that this would have torn her apart in ways that she never would have been able to piece back together.

“And that comes from someone as brave as you?” he jokes.

Brienne shrugs her broad shoulders. “I know I am a fool.”

_A fool for love. A fool for honor. A fool for everything that seems to matter beside the mission of keeping the vow to Lady Catelyn._

“You shouldn’t be that harsh on yourself. I suppose we are all just witless fools in the end,” Jaime tells her.

He knows he is a fool, a slow learner. Gods know what could have become of him instead, if only Jaime had not made some certain choices that thus seem to predetermine the rest of his life and beyond. He could have bypassed the Kingsguard, would never have become known and scorned at as the Kingslayer. He could be the Lord of Casterly Rock now, have wife and children, instead of having to come to realize that the children Cersei and he brought into the world are in dire danger, not just for the nature of whose children they are, but what position they find themselves in and at what time in history. However, Jaime also knows that it is not helping anyone to ponder what could have been, though it never was.

_There is no future of that kind for Kingslayers._

“That may be. Though then I can’t help but wonder how we can ever stop being fools,” Brienne argues as they keep walking down the corridors leading outside the Red Keep.

“We find something that puts our foolery to a good cause,” Jaime answers, rolling his shoulders as though the answer was rather straightforward.

“Like this?” Brienne asks, gesturing at her armor, the sword, the symbols of her mission.

_Our mission._

“Like this indeed,” Jaime agrees, nodding his head.

While he would rather not assign Brienne to such dangerous tasks, Jaime also knows that he won’t keep the woman from it, now that the woman got the idea stuck in her head that she has to find and secure Lady Sansa. And Jaime knows Brienne won’t back down from that mission, even though there are likely a hundred other options, all of which would serve her better than wading through snow and ice in search for a girl with red hair and her mother’s fire in her eyes. Brienne won’t be stopped, not this time, not now that she has a goal in mind again after she swam around the capitol, following Joffrey’s death.

And Jaime won’t keep her from it. For that, he knows far too well how much that means to Brienne, how much she needs this. For that, he cares too much about her.

They continue in silence for a while as both become increasingly aware of the circumstance that this familiarity, this sense of having someone to talk to about just those matters they can’t share with anyone else, will come to an end once Brienne rides away from King’s Landing, likely to never return to the capitol again in a lifetime.

“… You know, if… once you find Sansa and brought her back home, you should consider finally going back home,” Jaime comments.

“Why is that?” Brienne asks with a frown.

“Wouldn’t you agree that it’s been far too long that you have seen the Sapphire Isle? If you don’t want to end up being a fool for life, you should make better choices than I did,” Jaime tells her. “So perchance use the opportunity once it arises and keep out of that tedious business of thrones and kings and queens. It is not at all worth it.”

“Well, wouldn’t you say that this is thinking too far into the future just yet?” Brienne argues. “I haven’t even started searching for Lady Sansa. And Gods know whether I am going to find her. I have no illusion about the circumstance that it will be nearly impossible to find her.”

“Well, you should have _some_ goals in mind beyond that mission, I believe,” he ponders.

Because Jaime came to realize as of late that he stopped having larger visions. He may have had his little dreams, his small fantasies about how life could be peaceful if only he ran away with the remains of his family to keep them safe. However, all those fleeting reveries are lacking any kind of substance. To where would they go? Where would they be safe? Where would a one-handed man with shit for honor find a way to dodge the blow that even his siblings exchange among themselves rather than standing together?

Where is a future for the likes of him that reaches beyond the next day, next week, month, year?

Jaime has to get Tyrion out of prison. He has to bring Cersei to reason. He has to protect Tommen. Has to make sure about Myrcella in Dorne. There seems just so much to do that Jaime doesn’t even know where to begin, which takes plans for the future out of his reach till the end of his days.

Brienne, however? Jaime still bears the hope that she can make her luck, though he wouldn’t tell her since he knows the woman would only ever stare at him in disbelief and deny him what she sees as something out of the world, outrageous, when it is not to him at all. While Brienne would deny it whenever he’d call her upon it, they are similar in far too many ways, which is why he hopes, prays, even, that she will not suffer the same infectious disease that took a hold of him a long time ago.

Home can be a good cure, he wants to believe.

She still has a chance to live a life without war, without leaving herself behind along the way. Brienne can still find herself a man worthy of her who will treat this knightly lady right, and while that man will likely never be able to best her in battle, be by her side and sire children on her that she can raise to be the warriors of the next generation. Jaime can see that where no one else seems to find it, even less so Brienne, but he can see it, in bright blue colors, in clear shapes that he finds lacking and blurred out by the edges for all concerning himself.

And Jaime must say, that thought is more comforting than he ever imagined, as this is a future not his, and for a woman he won’t ever see again, as far as they know. Yet, it is also sickening for reasons Jaime can’t make out, no matter where he searches in the corners of his mind, only to get lost within them.

It’s strange to think of a future not his, the future of a woman he learned to trust like no other. And a part of him seems to wish to have some part in it, too, however small, however shielded by the shadows.

“I try not to think too far. That only leads one’s thoughts astray,” Brienne argues. “I don’t know what awaits me.”

In fact, the mere thought has Brienne’s stomach turn painfully into knot after knot after knot. Because what _is_ there beyond for her? What future awaits her in the obscurity of other futures, the more immediate ones that may have her succeed in finding Sansa? What is there for Brienne to do if or once the deed is done? Chasing Stannis to bring him to justice, maybe, _if_ she finds him.

Return to Tarth? What is that supposed to do for her? Brienne wrote to her father after they came to the capitol, to assure him that she was well after he must have been in deep worry after he received news from Harrenhal that his daughter was held hostage. However tempting it may be to see the isle’s blue waters again, the mere thought fills Brienne with a strange kind of dread. She failed Renly, she failed Catelyn. Everything she set out to do, Brienne failed to accomplish thus far. And while there is no doubt in her mind that her father would welcome her back to Tarth with arms wide open, she doesn’t know whether she can look him in the eye having proven such an utter failure in pursuing what she told him was her own goals, her own wishes.

 _I failed him as a daughter before_ , Brienne reminds herself, drawing in a shaky breath. _I know what my father would have wanted of me, what he wished to happen during that dance or when he made arrangements for finding me a blind enough betrothed to see past my looks. And I am none of those things… and won’t ever be._

A knight’s life, the life of a Kingsguard knight, that seemed like an honorable solution to Brienne. In private, she would have had the comfort of being by the side of the man she came to love so fiercely, if only from afar. And in the eye of the public, surely, it was frowned upon, a woman wearing chainmail, but that never wavered Brienne. She saw honor in her acts, she still sees honor in her vows, and that is what matters, what Brienne would have wanted to tell her father, would have meant to show him before she went to make him understand.

_Look at me, Father, look at what I became, at who I grew to be. Look at me, Father, see what I have done rather than what I others mean to see me. See me, Father. See me for who I am. See in me what someone else has faith in._

“Well, you will know best. I just meant to give some last advice before you can refuse it forever and always,” Jaime comments, offering a smile that doesn’t travel to his eyes, but only ever lets his lips curve upwards.

“I don’t refuse all of your advices if you mean to imply that,” Brienne argues. “Just the foolish ones.”

“Ah, so here we go again,” Jaime huffs.

One last time. One more dance without swords, without a rhythm or beat.

Just why does that feel him with such dread, however?

“Do _you_ have plans for the future just yet?” Brienne then asks, a question Jaime knows was inevitable as he asked her first, but it still manages to knock the air out of him. “For the one further away?”

“I have a lot of… very immediate business to take care of first, I am afraid,” Jaime laughs, though it is no joking matter, really. “With my brother, the trial… those are the things that will likely consume most of my time, supposedly all of my time and effort. Oh, this is going to give me so many sleepless nights again, I can already feel it in my bones.”

“Or maybe you will find rest at last as you will be so tired from taking care of all this that all is going to leave you alone once night comes,” Brienne suggests.

“I would surely hope so, but I don’t consider myself a very optimistic person. Somehow, losing a hand tends to put things into perspective, you see? So I don’t count on the Gods suddenly being in my favor. I bet they will keep bugging me in my sleep, too. Though I reckon I am lamenting about that to the wrong person, am I not?” Jaime asks with a smile he can’t bring himself to fully mean.

Because there was a time when he was sure of bright futures, when he was a foolish lad who just had the White put around his shoulders. Jaime dreamed of the honor of serving a king, he dreamed about being by the woman’s side who he reckoned would be the only one for the rest of his time. Back in those days, the future seemed clear, but then it was scourged out with green fire, with people’s screams as their flesh melted away. And after that, future seemed an impossible concept.

At least for himself.

“It is something we continue to share in, I assume,” Brienne says.

“And it is sad enough that this is supposed to be the thing we share in once you ride off to fulfill your knightly quest and…,” Jaime ponders, but then stops himself, surprising himself at how fast time passed between them as they are already by the city gates.

Where did the last moments go? Why are they always the shortest? Why don’t they ever last longer when pain seems to stretch into eternities?

“Well, it seems that we are there,” Jaime says, swallowing thickly as his throat goes dry. “Let me see about your gift, then.”

Jaime walks ahead, a little too fast, if only to escape the moment, the dread, whereas Brienne dares to walk on slowly, tries to stretch it out, if only for herself alone.

This is the last time. No more echoes, just faint dreams to keep her up at night.

They have changed. Everything around them has changed and forced them out of those times and places offering comfort, even if it is no more than a chaise lounge and a blanket offered for comfort or silently humming _The Song of the Seven_ to ease the other’s nightly grief. This is a new time. And those moments, too, will soon fade into the corners of her mind, her body, so to become echoes resonating within her new armor, the new part of herself. The others are part of the past and that one bit of her that feels incredibly familiar when around him will not be united in an armor, will remain external to her, for all times it seems.

Brienne lets her fingers curl around the sword to find some reassurance, to find a way forward, and she does as she starts moving again, over to the canopy road leading away from King’s Landing, away from the strangely familiar, out into a future she cannot even hear just yet.

“I don't need a squire.”

“Of course you do.”

“He'll slow me down.”

It’s the familiarity of the game that is supposed to make its loss less painful. Because it is easier to fall back into familiar patterns, slip into attires, roles they know how to play without much effort, without revealing too much to the other, afraid of what they might see.

“They say the best swords have names. Any ideas?”

“Oathkeeper.”

But some things are new and yet possess the power to echo back into the past, to show without saying it, that this makes sense only between them, that this name, this word only gains on meaning as it resonates between the two. Oathkeeper.

Her oath to him.

His oath to her.

Tied together by the certainty that both will keep it.

“Goodbye, Brienne.”

Goodbye, futures far away.

Goodbye, futures incredibly close.

Goodbye, familiarity.

Goodbye, comfort.

_Goodbye, Brienne. Though we won’t ever see each other again, I hope you will come to remember me well against all odds, to remember me for who I am rather than what others mean to see in me. Because this is how I mean to remember you._

….

Jaime never thought that the effect of someone missing could be that immediate. With Joffrey, it wasn’t so, perhaps because they always kept the distance, he did, upon Cersei’s request. However, passing those hallways now after Brienne rode off to find Sansa has Jaime feel almost immediately feel her presence vanished, gone.

And strangely so, that fills him with a kind of emptiness Jaime was not prepared for. After all, it was clear from the start that she would not stay, even if Cersei had not set her eye on the tall woman, even if Sansa had not been abducted. What was he thinking?

Or rather, what sweet dreams and little fantasies did he try to get lost in to think of a future reaching further away from him than the most immediate he knows is his one place to be as futures far away are out of Jaime’s reach forever, it seems?

He knows he shouldn’t feel regret. He is doing the right thing, on that one thing he is for sure, Jaime knows it, for once, he is not wrong. Brienne will be safer out of the capitol. Gods know what Cersei will do with her rage if she were to grow convinced that not just Tyrion had his part in Joffrey’s death. At this point of time, Jaime is not quite sure what his sister may come to believe in a grief that simply won’t end. She may well have accused Brienne if Jaime had waited for much longer. It was for the best. It was for Brienne’s best, to grant her a chance to find herself a new purpose, to set out to fulfill the vow for which she sacrificed so much already without ever gaining any kind of result, any kind of proper reward.

Jaime should feel worry, and that is something he feels plentifully, without a doubt, because this mission is still dangerous, and he knows that Brienne won’t hesitate to throw herself into the next best danger if she saw only as much as a fragile chance to get closer to Sansa.

_Though maybe Pod will slow her down just that bit that I need her to, so that Brienne does not get herself into too much trouble. After all, she is far more caring than she would want to have anyone believe. I should know, I have felt her comfort in some of my darkest hours._

And it was tender. It was gentle. It was all those things you do not expect when you look upon the Maid of Tarth, but Jaime long since learned his lesson about the matter: Brienne cannot be captured by “either… or” but rather “… and…”. If that makes it seem to others that she does not belong, then it does not matter either, because Jaime learned it makes sense once you take the time to get to know her, however much Brienne permits.

_Because that woman tight-lipped whenever things are too personal, dig too deep._

Jaime lets out a sigh as he comes to stand in front of his door, well aware that no one will be inside it, well aware that whatever comfort he may have found in nightly games of chess or comparing battle stories to beat one another even in that kind of contest, it won’t be there once he opens the door and walks inside.

He opens the door and slips inside, then, closes it slowly in his back to let his gaze wander about the room. It is what he expected: Empty, of course, which seems oddly fitting how he currently feels. And that even though Jaime knows he has other things to do, knows that there are other things that should be on his mind. Yet, right at this moment, it is just the emptiness he feels on the inside reflecting to the outside that is most prominent on his mind.

His breath heavy, Jaime walks over to his bed and sits down on it, trying to get used to the fact that this is the new time, that the safety net is now gone again. For Brienne it is in the most literal sense of being on her quest now, whereas Jaime finds himself without strings attached for the plain reason that the one person he learned to trust in such a way is now gone and likely won’t ever return for him to see her.

Though maybe once all war is over, there will be a gathering of the high lords and ladies, who knows? And maybe the Lady of Tarth will then wind up at the capitol again, will bow, not curtsy, and will have by her side a lord who will not mind at all that she moves the way she does. And maybe, they will then talk, too, about the old times, the echoes from the past, and they will remember together over wine and jokes, exchange other stories, new stories, of the quest of finding Sansa and her wedded husband, and how tedious she finds a royal’s life now that it falls upon her to fulfill those duties.

Maybe that is the one concept of a future Jaime can dream ahead to, though it also leaves a stale taste in his mouth for some reason, because that should be a good thought, should it not?

However, maybe that is thinking too far ahead already.

Because war is raging and Jaime doesn't see peace even at the very end of the horizon as the sun sets in the West.

Jaime’s eyes fix on the pillow as they suddenly spot a tint of green that wasn’t there before. The Lord Commander blinks repeatedly, reaching out with his left hand slowly, very slowly, as though that moment was made of glass, on the verge of breaking apart, but it does not, in fact.

Transfixed, he keeps looking at the wristband made of bluegrass, carefully woven, uneven in some places, but tough enough that he can bend it and twist it between his clumsy fingers without breaking, without shattering, something strong and flexible in a world that seems so utter fragile.

A smile flashes across Jaime’s lips as he finds his eyes paining.

_It seems that she had one more gift as well._

Jaime slips it over his left wrist as he lets himself fall back on the bed. Blinded by the light of day filtering through the windows, he turns the one hand that remained in front of his eyes, watches the way the bluegrass wraps around it, as though it belonged there all along.

Feeling his bones grow heavy all of a sudden, Jaime closes his eyes while resting his left wrist over his forehead, and to his great surprise, he finds himself soon drifting, drifting far away, to a night by the fireplace of watching Brienne weave the bluegrass, to walking in the gardens with her, to their games of chess, walking next to each other, the Brave Companions, their way through the Riverlands, all the way to the muddy pen where they first met, where they, as one, began.

The echoes ring inside his head and Jaime welcomes them, if only to make their growing fainter and fainter from now on a little more bearable.

Because the new time awaits him, Jaime is aware, once he opens his eyes to the new day, the new future without a future far ahead, where hopes are scarce and little dreams and fantasies are too much of a dare to even think about.

Yet, for now, he enjoys the gift of the soon-to-be-past reaching just a bit into the future.


End file.
